RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.racket.news/p/is-the-electoral-fix-already-in

“A politician who claims to be doing the job for us is up to something. The group in the current White House is trying to steal for themselves a word that belongs to you. Don’t let them.”

The fix is in. To “protect democracy,” democracy is already being canceled. We just haven’t admitted the implications of this to ourselves yet.

On Sunday, January 14th, NBC News ran an eye-catching story: “Fears grow that Trump will use the military in ‘dictatorial ways’ if he returns to the White House.” It described “a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers” that is “quietly” making plans to “foil any efforts to expand presidential power” on the part of Donald Trump.

The piece quoted an array of former high-ranking officials, all insisting Trump will misuse the Department of Defense to execute civilian political aims. Since Joe Biden’s team “leaked” a strategy memo in late December listing “Trump is an existential threat to democracy” as Campaign 2024’s central talking point, surrogates have worked overtime to insert existential or democracy in quotes. This was no different:

“We’re about 30 seconds away from the Armageddon clock when it comes to democracy,” said Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, adding that Trump is “a clear and present danger to our democracy.” Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward, one of the advocacy groups organizing the “loose” coalition, said, “We believe this is an existential moment for American democracy.” Declared former CIA and defense chief Leon Panetta: “Like any good dictator, he’s going to try to use the military to basically perform his will.”

Former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice and current visiting Georgetown law professor Mary McCord was one of the few coalition participants quoted by name. She said:

We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-was-a-never-trumper-but-biden-is-worse-2024-election-presidency-b734801b

In 2019 I wanted him impeached. Now I’ve become convinced that Biden is worse.

I called for President Trump’s impeachment in 2019. I stand by what I said then. But if Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee, I will vote for him in November.

Like many voters in 2020, I hoped Joe Biden would govern reasonably from the center. Instead, his administration has sought the furthest reaches of leftist ideology. What were once fringe progressive talking points have become national policy. Even the military has been infected with a divisive and unyielding woke doctrine. The economic landscape has been equally distressing: inflation, coupled with a ballooning national debt and deficit. Four more years of this means a bleak future for my children.

My work in financial regulation and cryptocurrency has shown me the havoc wrought by policies seemingly chosen not to foster economic growth but to appease the likes of Elizabeth Warren, who has enjoyed outsize influence over Mr. Biden’s nominations. One nominee to run the leading banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, was an open member of Marxist groups and called for the Federal Reserve to provide retail bank accounts. It took a few brave Democrats to stop her nomination.

Before, I didn’t embrace the rallying cry of “Build the wall.” Yet the crisis at our border compels me to acknowledge that Mr. Trump was right. The border situation underlines a broader reality—we need practical policies, not politically expedient ones. Mr. Trump doesn’t care about the niceties of political discourse, and that is an asset.

I find myself parting ways with the Never Trump faction. I respect its stance, which was born of conviction. Yet our situation demands a re-evaluation. We can continue down a path that has led to division and economic stagnation, or pivot to a future that, while imperfect, promises governance rooted in traditional American values, economic liberty and a judiciary cut from the same cloth as the gifted nominees confirmed to the Supreme Court under Mr. Trump.

Count me as a former Never Trumper. Given the coming election, the Never Trump position is naive. No third-party candidate can win and heal America. It’s time to pick a side, and Mr. Trump is the only alternative to Mr. Biden’s hyperprogressive vision for America.

https://victorhanson.com/nikki-haleys-strategies/

Nikki Haley just lost the New Hampshire primary by 11 percent.

She had earlier come in third in the recent Iowa caucuses behind Ron DeSantis.

But DeSantis, not she, dropped out of the race. He then endorsed front-runner Donald Trump.

By contrast, Haley confidently announced that at last there was a two-person, head-to-head race. So she confidently headed to New Hampshire.

Her subtext was that if she did not win the upcoming two-person primaries, she would come in “second” rather than “last.”

Her supporters outspent all the candidates in Iowa and would do so again in New Hampshire. Haley consolidated the Never-Trump voters, won Independents and cross-over Democrats, and garnered millions from the donor class exasperated at the thought of a third Trump candidacy.

Moreover, nearly half of those who voted in the Republican primary were not themselves Republicans. New Hampshire was the most Haley-friendly primary in the entire campaign season.

Yet after coming in last in the three-person Iowa race with 19 percent of the vote, she still lost by 11 points in a New England state more reflective of a traditional Romney or Bush voter than of a Trump supporter.

Trump has now won the first two primaries by large majorities. As he reminds us, no Republican in recent history has lost the nomination after winning Iowa and New Hampshire.

So what is Haley’s strategy ahead?

In the short term, she will cede to Trump the Nevada caucuses and focus on her home state of South Carolina.

But then what?

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/01/24/report-barack-obama-is-telling-joe-biden-to-quit-2024-race-n4925803

Earlier this month, we learned that Barack Obama advised Joe Biden on how to beef up his reelection campaign. Now, he appears to have given up all hope for Biden’s struggling campaign.

The former president and other allies of Biden’s have advised him “to quit the 2024 race to save America and the Democratic Party,” according to a report from RadarOnline.

“Insiders snitched that tensions between the two presidents recently exploded after irate Obama rushed to a secret meeting and confronted Biden about his fading chances to fend off surging Republican candidate Donald Trump in the upcoming November election,” explains the report.

Incredibly, Joe seems almost oblivious to the lack of excitement about his campaign and cratering approval ratings. Recent polls show a scant 38 percent of American’s approve of his performance with a whopping 58 percent holding a negative opinion of his work.

Meanwhile, Trump, 77, has seized a lead in some national polls despite being under indictment on 91 charges and openly declaring he wants to be a dictator.

In desperation, sources said Obama bellowed at bumbling Biden to go on the attack — and make sure trusted aides are constantly by his side on the campaign trail to keep them from committing the disastrous gaffes that have defined his presidency.

“The Obamas are convinced Joe’s lost his grip,” an insider confided. “He looks more feeble and clueless every day, and they know he’s lost the confidence of the public.”

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/america/2024/01/and-then-there-were-two/

The news that Ron DeSantis had thrown in the towel — “suspended my campaign” in the  losers’ parlance of this and every year’s presidential races — broke early in the afternoon, too late, and no doubt by design, for the talking heads of the networks’ Sunday morning pundits to seize the moment and gloat about their prescience in expecting it all along. True, after Iowa and running a poor third in the state polls before New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday (Wednesday in Australia), bailing out right now made sense for a faltering, cash-strapped candidate. But grim reality is not what aspirants to the Oval Office generally recognise, so often clinging in hope and self-deceit to their ambitions long after the ebb tide of support has left them on the beach. Think here of George Bush the Elder harrying Ronald Reagan in 1980 or, 28 years later on the other side of the aisle, Hillary Clinton refusing to concede until very late in the game that Obama had her whipped. In 2016, she had her own zombie challenger in Bernie Sanders, who terrier-like refused to let go despite knowing for a lead-pipe cinch that the Clinton machine had rigged the Democrats’ selection process to leave him with no chance whatsoever. Politicians in America are much easier to kill than their ambitions.

And that’s what makes the promptness of DeSantis’ decision both remarkable and his candidacy worth mourning. A year ago, there was an air of inevitability about him. Here was the governor of a booming state who represented so much of what Trump voters liked, indeed loved and still do. DeSantis had taken on the teachers unions and beaten them, picked a winning fight with Disney, Florida’s largest employer, and who extolled family values while pinning back the Mouse Factory’s big woke ears. He had served in the Navy – electorally a big plus, especially in the South and Flyover States — which Trump could not match, having waltzed away from military service in the Vietnam years on heels purportedly afflicted with incapacitating bone spurs. DeSantis had the record, the achievements and none of Trump’s personal and legal baggage.

The big-bucks donors — take that to mean corporate money — discerned a winner, set aside their reservations about a governor who gave Disney a good kicking and opened their wallets. That pundits and bookies alike rated him the early frontrunner was only to be expected.

https://thespectator.com/politics/ron-desantis-crashed-burned-trump/

“Many are called, but few are chosen.” That verse from Matthew (22:14) certainly applies to presidential aspirants. The latest to be called but not chosen is Ron DeSantis, who ended his campaign Sunday. Technically, he “suspended” the campaign, but that was simply to comply with campaign finance laws. In practice, the run is over. 

The campaign was a brief, unsuccessful effort by a candidate who began with high promise, based on his success as Florida governor. He won that office, just barely, in 2018 after a decisive endorsement from Donald Trump. He was reelected overwhelmingly in 2022 against a well-regarded Democratic opponent. In five years, he turned a state that had been purple for decades — remember Bush versus Gore in 2000 — into a reliably red one, fueled by a strong economy and an influx of people from high-tax, high-regulation states in the Northeast.  

DeSantis didn’t accomplish any of that with middle-of-the-road policies or watered-down compromises. He pursued a tough-minded conservative agenda on schools, taxes, public health and more. He defied Washington to reopen schools and the economy during Covid, producing a sharp recovery without worse health outcomes. Other Republican governors followed suit. He enacted school choice legislation and, more controversially, signed a six-week ban on abortions after the Supreme Court returned those decisions to the states (the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade).  

Those policies and their demonstrable success were red meat for a red base. No one doubted he would be a strong conservative voice in the White House, willing to resist the pressure of Washington insiders and national media, doubts the base clearly has about Nikki Haley. Thanks to those policies and his success in Florida, he began with more than enough funds to make his case to voters.  

He decided to make that case on the most favorable ground, Iowa, where Republicans share DeSantis’s values. He finished a distant second in the caucuses there and failed to win a single one of the state’s ninety-nine counties. He was trailing so badly in the New Hampshire primaries that he effectively withdrew from them. South Carolina was next up — and he was trailing badly there

Ron DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race Sunday afternoon and endorsed former president Donald Trump, announcing the suspension of an embattled campaign that began with a bungled launch on Twitter Spaces with a video posted to the same platform just two days before the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary.

DeSantis acknowledged in the video announcement Sunday afternoon that he no longer had a “clear path to victory” in 2024, but emphasized that his political career is just beginning. “While this campaign has ended, the mission continues. Down here in Florida, we will continue to show the country how to lead,” the governor said. Coinciding with the video announcement, DeSantis canceled a meet-and-greet event with voters originally scheduled for 5 P.M. in Manchester, New Hampshire.

DeSantis’s departure comes after his allies had spent days making calls to top donors asking whether the candidate should drop out ahead of the New Hampshire primary, as first reported by National Review. The bundler page on the campaign’s finance website was no longer working earlier that day, which signaled the campaign, NR reported earlier Sunday, which signaled that a drop-out announcement was imminent.

DeSantis had put all his eggs in the Iowa basket, which won him some key endorsements from Governor Kim Reynolds and influential evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats. But given that DeSantis and his allied PACs invested heavily in Iowa to the exclusion of New Hampshire, Trump’s roughly 30-point defeat proved a fatal blow to a campaign that was already on life support.

While DeSantis initially publicly claimed he punched his ticket out of Iowa and was staying in the race, the pro-DeSantis PAC Never Back Down was hit by layoffs last week and the campaign had canceled scheduled media appearances in recent days.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/get-ready-for-the-nevertrump-follies-on-steroids/

This election year marks the eighth anniversary of unhinged NeverTrump invective, and Trump Derangement Syndrome swamp-fevers. Just as mothers in England during the Napoleonic Wars frightened their wayward children with threats of “Boney” coming to get them, the Dems are revving up Trump’s “threats to our democracy,” “autocratic” ambitions, and schemes to take away our freedom and unalienable rights. Arguments ad Hitlerum soon will be flying fast and thick, and the slavish corporate media have loaded up on “big lies” and sharpened their poison pens.

If you think 2016-23 was bad, this year the Democrats are desperate for many reasons: their catatonic candidate, his son Hunter’s white-trash sleazy vices and international grifting, multiple policy failures at home and abroad, and underwater polls numbers––for 76% of voters Biden is “too old to effectively serve another term.” All these problems will abet the Democrats’ patent lies, suborning of federal agencies and courts, fake horror stories about the January 6 “insurrection,” and shameless projections of their own autocratic inclinations and lust for power onto their political opponents.

This last Dem bad habit is particularly mendacious and dripping with hypocrisy. In last week’s January 6 anniversary speech at Valley Forge, Biden read, “Democracy means having the freedom to speak your mind.” But Donald Trump is “willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power.”

What better example of the brazen shamelessness that Adolf Hitler said typifies the “big lie”? The “grossly impudent lie” and “colossal untruths” are so preposterous that listeners “would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” We all know which faction censors speech, shouts down speakers, punishes dissidents with personal and professional “cancellation” and smears, and keeps an index librorum prohibitorum cataloguing which thoughts, ideas, persons, and words cannot be written or spoken.

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/01/17/corruption-charges-still-loom-as-major-barrier-to-biden-reelection-in-2024-ii-tipp-poll/

Much of the discussion over whether President Joe Biden will drop out of the 2024 presidential race centers on his increasingly obvious age-related issues. But a potentially more serious problem awaits Biden, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll suggests: Strong evidence that he illegally profited from public office while vice president under former President Barack Obama.

At 81 years of age and with painful difficulties handling his official duties, Biden’s waning mental acuity has become a serious issue. But while age and a record low approval rating are major impediments to Biden’s reelection, the pile of evidence amassed in Congress’ investigation into Biden’s and son Hunter’s legally questionable business dealings could prove lethal to his presidency.

I&I/TIPP posed the following question to U.S. voters in August of 2023: “A congressional
committee claims it has strong evidence that President Biden and his family took millions of
dollars in bribes from foreign nations. If those claims turn out to be true, President Biden
should:”

Voters were given a choice of possible answers: “Resign immediately,” “Be impeached and
removed from office,” “Be allowed to finish his term in office, but not run again,” “Run again in
2024, regardless of the findings,” and “Not sure.”

A strong majority of 67% in our poll suggested that President Joe Biden should either be
impeached (43%) or resign immediately (24%) if the charges prove true. Just 15% said Biden
should “Be allowed to finish his term in office, but not run again,” and another 8% said “Run
again in 2024, regardless of the findings.” One in six (17%) weren’t sure.

The most recent I&I/TIPP national online poll was taken from Jan. 3-5 included 1,401 adults,
with a +/-2.6 percentage-point margin of error.