RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/01/26/suddenly-its-no-longer-deeply-dangerous-to-talk-about-rigged-elections/

It wasn’t long ago that we were told that President Donald Trump’s questioning the legitimacy of the election wasn’t just unfounded, but a serious threat to the future of the nation.

As one commentator put it, by fanning the specter of election fraud, Trump was “sowing doubt not just about the 2020 election, but whether America’s voting system – the foundation of American democracy – is sound … In a democracy, where governing power is rooted in the consent of the governed, this is deeply dangerous.”

Yet here is President Joe Biden, predicting that the next election can’t be trusted, based on far less evidence than Trump had. And the press is celebrating him for it.

“I think it would easily be illegitimate,” said Biden at his marathon press conference last week when asked about the midterm elections (that Republicans are expected to sweep). “The increase in the prospect of being illegitimate is in proportion to not being able to get these reforms passed.”

Biden was referring to a bill push by Democrats that would federalize state elections and make it easy for the left to manipulate vote totals. In the bizarro world of the Democratic-media complex, this is called a “voter rights” bill. And efforts by Republicans to enact prudent requirements such as voter ID, registration roll maintenance, vote harvesting bans, and the like, are described as voter suppression.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/its_still_timely_and_necessary_to_get_the_2020_election_right.html

A solid majority of Americans know that the 2020 election was fraudulent. That’s a big problem for a country with a representative government, one in which the leaders are supposed to represent the will of the people. We’re a nation of laws ostensibly flowing from a Constitution that sets out explicit limitations on the federal government’s powers and protects a variety of citizens’ rights upon which said government cannot infringe. To the degree that a significant majority of citizens feel that the leader of this government was not constitutionally elected, that’s a problem.

For all its importance, our Constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper. It doesn’t make laws. It doesn’t have an army. It’s not the police. It’s just words on paper. It functions because Americans have confidence in its words as the foundation for the laws of our country and the guideposts governing the actions of those who actually control the army and the police and write the laws.

When that confidence is shaken, society’s foundation is shaken. While the fraudulent election of 2020 is not the first example of that shaken confidence in government, it’s easily the most important. From the economic upheavals wrought by the Industrial Revolution to widespread hopelessness during the Depression to the perceived fecklessness during the Vietnam War and economic malaise of the 60s and 70s, confidence in government has been shaken before but never before has the government’s legitimacy been in widespread doubt.

That changed with the 2020 election. Americans watched as the fraud played out in real-time, right in front of them. With violent riots in the streets that went unrestrained in the months leading up to the election, with courts inexplicably ignoring countless unconstitutional changes to voting laws, and with the media and social media censoring true stories that harmed Democrat chances, it started to seem as if the scales were tipped to one side. On election night and during the following weeks it became clear that this was indeed the case.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/did_over_100000_people_older_than_124_years_vote_in_wisconsin.html

If you’ve been wondering about the extent of voter fraud in America, we may be seeing a staggering amount of either fraud or grotesque negligence in Wisconsin voter rolls. A review of the state’s voter roles showed that 569,277 voters registered on January 1, 1918. Of that number, 20% of these people, all of whom must be at least 124 years old, voted last November. Biden “won” in Wisconsin by 20,682 votes….

For regular American Thinker readers, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Roughly two weeks ago, Jay Valentine wrote about the extent of fraud he and his team have discovered as they’ve uploaded voter rolls (which often had corrupted data that seemed deliberately intended to keep information opaque) into Valentine’s system. Once the information for any given state was loaded and sorted, it invariably revealed rather surprising information in both red and blue states. Among other things, in one red state, there were “4,300 people over 100 years old on their rolls.  Some were 121.  Those were the kids.  The really old ones were almost 2,000 years old, and there were a bunch of them – and they voted.”

(For those wondering, my understanding is that Valentine did not identify specific states because it’s important for the volunteer canvassers to have complete anonymity. Naming states could make the officials who are being exposed as corrupt or inept start looking for canvassers.)

The revelations out of Wisconsin (and I have no idea whether Jay Valentine has been part of the Wisconsin analysis) are staggering. It turns out that at least one out of every 14 voters in Wisconsin is at least 124 years old. Thus, to register in 1918, a person would have had to have been 21 or older. That means that one out of every 14 Wisconsin residents is older than 124 years. Even more amazing, 115,252 of those ancient people made the effort to vote in November. It’s certain that some of them provided the votes that gave Biden that 20,682-vote lead.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/can-jeremy-hunt-unseat-georgias-last-rural-democrat/

The young Army veteran thinks he has what it takes to score a Republican upset.

I n a nation increasingly polarized along rural–urban lines, Georgia’s second congressional district goes against the trend. Rural voters in the 2020 election broke for Republicans by overwhelming numbers: 1,302 of the 1,430 most rural counties in America were carried by Donald Trump. But out of the 127 that went for Joe Biden, three — Calhoun, Clay, and Macon — were in GA-2.

Nestled in the southwestern corner of Georgia, the second congressional district spans the western half of the state’s historic “black belt” (the term denotes a region of majority-black counties). It’s the only rural seat in the state that continues to send Democrats to Washington, D.C., and the one Republican ever to represent the district left office in 1875. But like so many rural communities across the country, GA-2 has been trending red in recent years, and the Peach State’s latest round of redistricting makes it slightly more advantageous for Republicans. The state’s new congressional map, introduced by the Republican legislature and signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp in the final days of 2021, prompted FiveThirtyEight to downgrade the district from D+6 to D+4. That two-point move to the right shifts GA-2 from the polling website’s “competitive Democrat” category to “highly competitive.”

Jeremy Hunt thinks he’s the one to pull off a Republican upset in 2022. The 28-year-old Army veteran, who announced his candidacy last week, told National Review about his two-pronged strategy: “The first is driving up Republican turnout,” he said. The second is “reaching new voters.” Hunt intends to build “a broader coalition of voters to join the conservative movement,” and he says his campaign has “a lot of momentum to do that, particularly with black voters in the area.” He sees them as “already kind of aligned with us in terms of values.”

As the son of a black pastor, Hunt is keenly attuned to his district’s culturally conservative, church-oriented voter base. He’s an affable family man, with a wife and two-year-old daughter, and his roots in the area run deep: His grandmother “was the first in our family to ever go to college, and she attended Fort Valley State University — right here in my district,” he said. “If you can imagine a black woman going to college back in the 1940s, it’s pretty remarkable.” The Hunts started the Willie Pearl Hunt Scholarship for those in the family who wanted to go to college. As Hunt said, “Only in America!”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/biden-is-not-alone-democrats-have-been-delegitimizing-elections-for-years/

For the people lamenting the ‘Big Lie,’ this rhetoric actually is nothing new.

Y esterday, Joe Biden joined Chuck Schumer and numerous other Democrats in a partisan attempt to preemptively delegitimize the 2022 election. Twice the president was asked by reporters whether voters could trust the electoral system, and twice the president contended that a fair election was unlikely unless the Senate was blown up and the Democrats’ election power grab was passed — a maneuver that poses a far more serious and lasting threat to the constitutional order than anything Donald Trump is cooking up right now. “I think it would easily be illegitimate,” said Biden. “The increase in the prospect of being illegitimate is in proportion to not being able to get these reforms passed.” Vice President Kamala Harris, sent out on the morning shows today, offered basically the same position.

For people lamenting the “Big Lie,” this is nothing new. Trump’s election-fraud conspiracy theories have been endlessly documented. Sometimes it sounds as if he’s merely appropriated the language of Democrats, who’ve been playing this ugly game for years. And it’s not only the post-election evidence-free Stacey Abrams–sore-loserism that we’re typically subjected to. It’s far more pervasive.

During Trump’s first impeachment — headier times, when we were still pretending to care about the fate of Ukraine rather than inviting Putin to take a slice — Democrats argued that ousting Trump was a precondition to a fair election. Nancy Pelosi warned colleagues that maintaining the position that elections should decide Trump’s fate was “dangerous” and “only adds to the urgency of our action, because the President is jeopardizing the integrity of the 2020 elections.” Adam Schiff, one of the leading culprits in the Russia “collusion” swindle, concurred: “The President’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won.”

Never once, incidentally, have any of these people offered a scintilla of evidence demonstrating that a single person’s vote was changed, altered, or appropriated by Trump or Russians or anyone else. Yet at one point, a healthy majority of Democrats claimed to believe that Putin had altered vote tallies. How many Democrats still believe it?

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/18/last-ballot-for-the-brave/

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, some 240,329 remained alive in 2021. Hundreds die every day. This year’s midterm elections could be the last time many of them get to vote. That includes some of the best fighters, who never got the recognition they deserved. 

The First Special Service Force (FSSF) was an elite American-Canadian unit established to handle dangerous missions behind enemy lines. At Fort Harrison in Montana, they trained in stealth combat, parachuting, night missions, and winter warfare in mountainous conditions. Their first major campaign proved a perfect match for the training. 

In the fall of 1943, the Allies had been unable to break through the Germans’ line of fortifications south of Rome. Nazi forces held the high ground on the strategic Monte la Difensa and blocked routes to the summit. The FSSF took the hard way up. 

In the cold, wet conditions in early December 1943, FSSF forces hiked 10 miles to the mountain and the heavily laden troops scaled a 300-foot cliff without alerting German sentries. In a fierce battle, the FSSR swept the entrenched, better-equipped Germans from the summit. 

In the Italian mountains, the FSSF took the fight to the enemy. By the middle of January 1944, the Allied advance could proceed north. The FSSF fought at Anzio, a rehearsal for D-Day, and took part in the liberation of Rome. In southern France, the FSSF conducted daring night raids behind German lines. The FSSF fighters left stickers on enemy gear reading, “the worst is yet to come,” and it was. 

All told, the Force played a major role in taking down Hitler’s National Socialist regime. In 2018, a full 75 years after Monte la Difensa, 72 FSSF soldiers were still alive. Those who remain today would surely find the current scene confusing. 

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/18/black-republican-mayor-launches-campaign-for-governor-of-illinois-on-martin-luther-king-day/

A black Republican mayor launched his campaign for governor of Illinois on Martin Luther King Day with a powerful video acclaiming the dreams of his great grandfather, who was born a slave.

Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, 51, is the fifth candidate to compete for the nomination to run against billionaire Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker in the 2022 gubernatorial election.

“Richard Baxter Irvin was born a slave, but he dreamed of being free,” Irvin said in his campaign launch video. “I don’t just share the name Richard Irvin,” he said. “I share his dream of what Illinois could be: where a growing economy provides ladders of opportunity for anyone willing to work; where families are safe; where kids are educated, not indoctrinated.”

In his campaign video, Irvin describes his own humble beginnings growing up in Section Eight public housing in Aurora.

“Mom had me at 16, a single mother working two jobs. Didn’t have much of a father, but my granddad, son of Richard Baxter Irvin, taught me to believe in myself, to do the best I could in whatever I did,” he said.

After graduating from high school, Irvin joined the Army and fought in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. He later attended law school at Northern Illinois University, and following graduation became a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. He eventually a “community prosecutor” in his hometown.

Irvin ran for mayor of Aurora in 2005 and 2009, and lost both races. He later became a local GOP precinct committeeman. Irvin was elected as the first black mayor of Aurora in 2017, and takes credit for lowering the city’s crime rates. If elected, he would be the first black governor of Illinois.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/voter-id-requirements-make-sense-terence-p-jeffrey/
“It is not unreasonable in the 21st century to require people who want to vote to demonstrate that they are legally eligible to do so by presenting a valid form of identification.”

A young man who looks like a teenager walks into a liquor store and pulls a bottle of cheap whiskey off a shelf.

He puts it down at the checkout counter and pulls out his wallet.

The clerk at the counter looks at him skeptically. “Can I see your ID?” he asks.

“Yes,” says the young man, who instantly takes his driver’s license out of his wallet and hands it to the clerk.

The driver’s license indicates to the clerk that the customer in front of him had turned 21 two months ago. He sells him the cheap whiskey.

Then another young man walks into the store. He grabs a bottle of very expensive champagne and puts it on the counter.

Once again, the clerk asks the young man if he has an ID.

“No,” says the young man.

“Then I can’t sell you this champagne,” says the clerk.

“You have got to be kidding me,” says the young man. “I am 22 years old.”

“Then prove it,” says the clerk.

“I left my driver’s license at home,” says the young man.

“Then go get it,” says the clerk.

“No, I’ll go buy my champagne somewhere else,” says the young man, who leaves the store in disgust.

This second hypothetical young man, however, was only 19, which made him old enough to vote but not old enough to buy champagne.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2022/01/19/trump-v-desantis-advantage-desantis-n2601998

Things keep changing. A few months ago I thought Trump would not run. Then I thought he would run. Now, I don’t think so once again. And one of the tells is the subtle shot he took at DeSantis over vaccines. The fact is that Trump, if he runs, is not a shoo-in. And this could be an epic battle for the chance to beat Kamala Harris like a drum in 2024. And, at least according to people like you who took my most recent Twitter poll, Trump is not a shoo-in. He’s dropped to just one-third support from nearly half six months ago. If he wants to win Round Two, he’ll have to fight for it.

But my gut is again telling me that 75-year-old Donald Trump will not run in 2024. Perhaps if the election was next week, but with it three years off, that’s a lot of time and he’s aging out. Does he want to follow President Crusty’s lead and decline on camera over the next seven years (three campaigning, four in office)? Is anyone more sensitive to such things than Trump? Maybe not.

But he still likes being the big dog, and he resents those coming along behind him who neglect to recognize. The purported shot at DeSantis over jabs last week seems significant. Trump is super proud of his vaccines, which is definitely not where the base is at right now. Does he know that? He’s off in his own world and TV does not reflect the depth of the anti-COVID dissension. He did a rally in Arizona and that’s nice, but the more he defends his COVID record – which includes not firing that malignant dwarf Fauci – the less the base is going to dig his rap.