RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/18/the-gop-primary-obviously-isnt-over-but-the-first-debate-is-crucial/

If one is to believe the prevailing narrative from Donald Trump’s current campaign to retake the White House, the 2024 Republican presidential primary might as well be over. The former president has been consistently dominating the top-line horse race polling for months now, the argument goes, despite (or perhaps because of?) the fact he has now been criminally indicted four separate times, by three different prosecutors, in four different jurisdictions. Therefore, the Trump triumphalists shout from their rooftops, the other candidates should just drop out right now. “Spare your dignity and coronate Trump today!!!”

This argument is absurd for approximately a million different reasons.

First, and perhaps most important, the last time I checked the calendar, it still said, “August 2023.” While commentators, campaign operatives and political junkies with apparently nothing else better to do in their free time are already intensely following the Republican presidential primary, the same is simply not true for the vast majority of Americans who largely tune out the news during the dog days of summer. A political party’s first televised presidential primary debate marks the unofficial beginning of its normal, non-activist voter base paying attention in earnest. Yes, Trump has maintained a stubborn lead in the national horse race polls for months now. But it is still ridiculously early.

Second, and perhaps next important, it is totally unclear what shape Trump might find himself in six months from now, to say nothing of one year from now. Many of the former president’s “coronate him today!”-style enthusiasts tend to suppose, because of the thoroughly unjust nature of the ruling class’s sprawling multistate legal persecution of Trump, that he will be inevitably exonerated from all charges and acquitted of all legal woes.

Trump’s supporters are right on the unjustness of the Regime’s jihad against Trump – though the former president’s often-myopic conduct, from his ignoring a grand jury subpoena in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents retention case to the outlandish, infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the Fulton County, Georgia case, makes it all-too easy for his foes. But Trump’s supporters are wrong about the very nature of these four indictments, each one of which necessarily involves a different judge and a different juror pool, and all of which present differing likelihoods of guilt, acquittal or some sort of ultimate plea deal. In the interim, furthermore, Trump will be strapped for time as he is forced to physically jet off to courtrooms in four jurisdictions, and his campaign and supporting super PAC will continue to have their coffers bled dry with ever-mounting legal bills.

https://ijr.com/vivek-ramaswamy-infuriates-fox-news-host-trump/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=ijr-breaking&utm_campaign=breaking&utm_content=firefly

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy expertly turned the tables on Neil Cavuto when the Fox Business host tried to get him to attack the GOP frontrunner in the 2024 race.

The pair spoke Tuesday on “Your World” about the various criminal charges filed against Donald Trump this year and Ramaswamy’s promise to pardon the former president if elected.

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If Cavuto was hoping the entrepreneur would blast Trump over the indictments, he was wrong.

Indeed, Ramaswamy told the host it is the indictments that are wrong.

“I will be unabashed about standing on the side of principle when I say, yes, these prosecutions are wrong,” he said.

“But there are 91 criminal charges in all … as you’re aware, over four criminal cases. They can’t all be politicized, can they? I mean, there’s something that the former president must have done in any one of these that struck you as wrong, if not illegal,” Cavuto said.

“I think, Neil, just because the government has brought a case, if we’re going to be a culture that now starts to say, ‘There must be something wrong if the government has charged 91 counts,’ I think that’s a … people of sheep. And when the people behave like sheep, that breeds a government of wolves,” Ramaswamy answered.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/free-ron-desantis-florida-president-candidate-disney-debate-gov-fa0e36c?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

The Ron DeSantis campaign continues to reset its reset. At some point it might consider that what it needs isn’t a reset but a reversal—a return to the Ron DeSantis of yore.

Last September Mr. DeSantis stood on a stage near Miami and gave a speech to remember. He spoke enthusiastically about the Florida model, ably connecting its successes to free-market conservative philosophy. The state’s thriving economy was a product of low taxes, modest government, the quick abandonment of unscientific Covid lockdowns. Its surplus was thanks to fiscal prudence and policies that expand the “economic pie.” Widespread school choice produced rising test scores; accountability in public universities kept tuition low. Support for law enforcement equaled public safety.

People were flocking to Florida because “common sense” and “rational” policies provided better roads, trustworthy elections, good jobs. His comments about critical race theory and gender ideology were framed in the broader context of the need to protect parental and employee rights. He used Disney to make a compelling distinction between “free enterprise” and subsidized “corporatism.” He invoked Ronald Reagan’s most terrifying words in the English language: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”—though the Floridian called to update them to take into account the modern bureaucratic state.

That Ron DeSantis came across as smart and optimistic, bold and absolutely in tune with needs of the “average” families he frequently mentioned. It’s the formula that six weeks later handed the Florida governor a landslide re-election victory, in which he won the rural vote, the suburban vote, even the urban vote, 62 of 67 counties and nearly every demographic. It’s the formula that made him the biggest threat to Donald Trump’s renomination.

Where’s that Ron DeSantis today?

https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/10/why-ron-desantis-is-the-man-to-lead-the-great-american-comeback/

Presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis will do for these United States what he has done for Florida and raise our expectations for the executive.

Even prior to arriving in Florida to work for the Office of Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2020, I was immediately struck by the bravery and conviction he exhibited during the early days of Covid. He stood on principle and fortified his position with data.

This endeared me to his causes. My own path to Florida began with studying and sharing Covid data online. In contradicting some of the federal government’s narratives, I endured a tsunami of smears from corporate media attempting to attack my credibility and qualifications for my job.

For saying things like masks didn’t stop respiratory viruses, lockdowns were destructive, and the virus may have come from a lab, I was ridiculed and vilified. In fact, some congressional Democrats tried to have me canceled after I accepted a position with the state.

Despite the onslaught, the DeSantis administration never budged. Going with the governor against Anthony Fauci was the correct decision.

Now, my path has diverged a bit. But my resolve has not.

A few months ago, I left the state office to join the Ron DeSantis for President campaign. It required little contemplation. You only commit to such an endeavor knowing it’s a finite journey that could be a roller coaster ride of emotion.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/how-biden-trump-exit-2024-race

What a mess. 

The United States of America, the greatest country in the world, looks set to field one candidate for president in 2024 who faces possible impeachment and is trying to put his opponent in jail and another who has now been indicted by three different prosecutors and who continues to deny the results of the last election.

No matter your politics, this is not a healthy state of affairs. People on both sides of the aisle will be mostly voting out of anger and hatred in 2024 and not because they admire their candidate. Polling shows the public has a historically low opinion of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. 

Democrats are consumed – yes, nearly deranged – by hatred of Donald Trump, even though our country prospered under his leadership. Republicans are equally furious that the former president has been falsely accused on bogus charges for years, and now faces what many consider politically-driven prosecutions.  

Is there a way out of this predicament? Perhaps.

When playing golf, players occasionally enjoy a “good-good” moment. Both have arrived on the green, perhaps four feet from the hole. Neither is in contention to win the contest, both are tired and instead of requiring each other to make the remaining putt, they declare “good-good.” They give each other that last putt and walk off the green happy. 

For the good of the country, that’s what we need from Joe Biden and Donald Trump: a “good-good” moment. What would that look like?

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/08/09/go-on-gavin-dont-be-afraid-debate-desantis/

“Boy, a few dark clouds appear on your horizon and you just go all to pieces.” – Butch to Sundance in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

Some months ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would be “all in” on a debate with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis later accepted. Now some are wondering if Newsom’s offer was sincere because it looks as if he wants to avoid the verbal sparring. Which makes sense: Newsom probably knows he can’t take the heat.

Newsom was fast-tracked for political stardom through his connections to San Francisco wealth and power. He was groomed and polished by the Gettys, the Pritzkers and the Fishers, not only in politics but in business, where he was set up not to fail.

But on his way to the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, which took him through the San Francisco mayor’s and the lieutenant governor’s offices, he never faced a capable political opponent in an election or debate. His path to the next political office was always clear of anything that might slow him or cause him even the slightest adversity. It has always been Blue sailing for him in California.

When Newsom did run into a minor storm, he crumbled. In what’s been called his “damn” interview in August 2021 with editorial and opinion writers from McClatchy’s California newspapers, the governor, about a month before he survived a failed recall, reacted to not-at-all-hostile questions by uttering “damn’ nine times, and slamming “his desk with his hand and fist 59 times,” the California Globe Reported.

A youtuber who posted the video online called Newsom’s reactions “a whiny self-pitying recall rage rant.” Larry Elder, who ran for governor in the recall election, tweeted that Newsom had morphed “into Captain Queeg.”

When DeSantis confronts Newsom with hard questions, and indisputable facts, how is he going to hold it together? How does he explain that people are fleeing from California and to Florida without losing his cool?

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/07/jack-smiths-sham-indictment-shows-biden-regime-wants-to-face-trump/

A federal indictment of former President Donald Trump on charges pertaining to his ham-fisted contestation of the 2020 presidential election and the subsequent Jan. 6, 2021 jamboree at the U.S. Capitol was all but a foregone conclusion, and Department of Justice-appointed special counsel Jack Smith delivered the goods on Tuesday. In a 45-page sham indictment of the 45th president’s post-2020 Election Day conduct, President Joe Biden’s hatchet man argued for a ludicrously broad view of fraud and criminal conspiracy, a chilling view of free speech and a dystopian view of the attorney-client relationship. With its unprecedented politicization of the rule of law and brazen siccing of the federal prosecutorial apparatus on a leading partisan foe, the Biden Regime has made explicit that which should have already been obvious: The Regime wants a presidential rematch against Trump next fall.

Smith’s much-anticipated four-count indictment paints Trump as the focal point of a sprawling criminal conspiracy to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Under Smith’s theory of the case, Trump and his six “co-conspirators” directed a national effort to sow doubt about various states’ Election Day results and galvanize Republican-held state legislatures to submit competing slates of Electoral College electors, culminating in the intense pressure placed upon former Vice President Mike Pence to reject various states’ slates of electors on Jan. 6. But if Trump earnestly believed the 2020 election was stolen due to rampant fraud, then his attempts to direct his Department of Justice to work with the afflicted states to submit for consideration alternative slates of electors was justifiable; in fact, if he truly subjectively believed fraud on that great of a scale had occurred, one could plausibly argue his constitutional oath of office required such actions.

Smith’s move to get around this is to argue, based on nothing more than secondhand remarks, that Trump subjectively knew the 2020 election was not, in fact, stolen. But no matter how many different names of lawyers Smith trots out who apparently told Trump that he had in fact lost the election, it will be near-impossible for Smith to prove that Trump actually, deep down, knew he lost. It is entirely possible, for instance, that for every 99 people in his orbit who told him he lost, Trump chose to believe the one person who told him that he had really won; confirmation bias is real, and Trump is well known for taking the advice of the most recent person he happened to have spoken with. Smith’s attempted criminalization of Trump’s free speech right to push for competing slates of electors is also laughable when considering that various Democratic officials tried precisely the same thing — submitting alternative slates of electors by sowing doubt about the integrity of a presidential election in certain states — after George W. Bush’s presidential victories in 2000 and 2004, as well as Trump’s own presidential victory in 2016.

/https://nypost.com/2023/08/02/every-trump-indictment-brings-us-closer-to-the-rematch-america-really-doesnt-need/

In a fresh blow to any hopes the 2024 GOP primary can focus on competing visions for America’s future, special counsel Jack Smith just dumped fresh charges against Donald Trump over his bid to overturn the 2020 results that might as well be designed and timed to rally Republicans behind him.

This case is on top of two others, one relating to the classified docs plus Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s Stormy Daniels hush-money prosecution, as well the expected Georgia indictment over his 2020-vote hijinks in that state.

We don’t want to dive deep into any of the charges here. The key is that none of it is cut-and-dried (the docs one is serious, but raises issues of selective prosecution; Bragg’s case is laughable).

Heck, we’ve slammed Trump repeatedly over his 2020 denialism and shameful Capitol Riot record, but Smith’s charges largely rely on new and questionable legal theories.

Above all: In the context of the Justice Department’s evident drive to quash any serious Hunter Biden investigation — and the failure to name a special counsel to handle it, despite the rising evidence implicating President Joe Biden in possible misconduct — most Republicans see it all as political vendettas, not a search for justice.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/02/if-the-desantis-campaign-is-in-trouble-why-is-the-leftist-media-ramping-up-their-attacks/

In the last week, the leftist propaganda media—practically in unison, has ramped up their attacks against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in a concerted effort to declare the Republican primary race over—before the first debate has even occurred, and more than five months before the Iowa Caucuses.

These partisans are so desperate to destroy his campaign and sway public opinion that they will literally accuse him of anything, no matter how far removed it is from reality.

Here’s a small fraction of the recent headlines we’ve seen, which I’ve taken the liberty of correcting in bold, below the original.

“The Sputtering DeSantis Campaign Looks for a Restart,” writes the New York Times. 

“In Very Early Stages of Race, DeSantis Campaign Shifts Strategy.”

“Weak, small and reckless: how Ron DeSantis, Republican Napoleon, met his Waterloo,” says The Guardian.

“Strong and Effective: how Ron DeSantis crushed the Left’s radical agenda in Florida.”

“A DeSantis come-from-behind win is looking vanishingly unlikely,” says Politico.

“Politico is terrified DeSantis might win the GOP nomination.”

“Looking for a fight, Ron DeSantis tangles with Kamala Harris,” writes NBC.

“Looking for a fight with Ron DeSantis, Kamala Harris Lies about Florida’s African American history curriculum.”

https://thespectator.com/politics/only-way-ron-desantis-prevails-2024/ I wonder if Ron DeSantis’s favorite mot these days is from Mark Twain: “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Maybe so. But let’s face, the reports are many and deafening. They are also damaging. Consider, to take one recent example, the report, conveyed by Semafor, on the DeSantis Meme Team that works under the rubric of […]