Monday, October 7, 2019

Dick's Sporting Goods CEO says company destroyed $5 million in guns


- The Washington Times - Monday, October 7, 2019
Ed Stack, the chairman and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, said in a new interview that his company destroyed $5 million worth of semi-automatic rifles after removing them from store shelves last year.
Dick’s stopped selling AR-15s after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 but took it a step further after the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, raising the gun purchase age to 21 and banning the sale of high-capacity magazines and assault-style rifles. It was a highly controversial move that Mr. Stack said cost the company “pretty close” to $250 million.
“About a quarter of a billion,” Mr. Stack said when asked how much the company lost during a CBS interview aired Sunday.
He said the company turned $5 million worth of weapons pulled from store shelves into scrap metal.
“I said, ‘You know what? If we really think these things should be off the street, we need to destroy them,’” he said.
Despite the blow to business, Mr. Stack said he is weighing pulling all firearms from store shelves.
“We’ve got the whole category under strategic review to see what we’re going to do with this category,” he said.
“So many people say to me, you know, ‘If we do what you want to do, it’s not going to stop these mass shootings,’” he said. “And my response is, ‘You’re probably right, it won’t. But if we do these things and it saves one life, don’t you think it’s worth it?’”
Yeah, right.  Let's see some actual proof that they destroyed all of those ARs instead of just returning them to their supplier or selling them to another, less self-righteous retailer.

House Sends More Carefully Worded Impeachment Demand Letters (Not Subpoenas) – OMB and Pentagon

House Sends More Carefully Worded Impeachment Demand Letters (Not Subpoenas) – OMB and Pentagon

Chairman Adam Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Chairman Elijah E. Cummings, Committee on White House Oversight; Chairman Eliot L. Engel, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, continue sending carefully worded letters under the guise of ‘subpoenas’ today.  [Main Link Here]
However, you’ll notice in these latest versions they are modifying: (#1) now they actually include attachments that would be “subpoenas”; yet they shift language to ‘subpoena schedules’.  Why?  Because (#2) the letters and subpoenas omit any penalty for non-compliance.  They cannot assign a penalty because the letters do not carry judicial authority.

Obviously Lawfare, instructing Pelosi’s group, realizes the larger American electorate has caught on to the impeachment word games. The “official impeachment inquiry” is all a one-party partisan ruse.  Here’s the issue they cannot overcome.

Yes, congress can issue subpoenas; however a congressional committee must meet three requirements for their investigative subpoenas to be “legally sufficient” or have “judicial authority”; meaning a subpoena that carries a legal penalty for non-compliance.
  • First: “the committee’s investigation of the broad subject area must be authorized by its chamber;
  • Second: “the investigation must pursue “a valid legislative purpose” but does not need to involve legislation and does not need to specify the ultimate intent of Congress;
  • Third: the specific inquiries must be pertinent to the subject matter area that has been authorized for investigation.
These “subpoenas” from the committees do not meet the first hurdle.  The “impeachment inquiry” was not authorized by its chamber.  The chamber for each committee is the full house of representatives.  [Again, there are constitutional processes within impeachment.]

KEY POINT – Remember, the Legislative committee intent is to pierce the constitutional firewall that creates a distinct separation of powers; and the Legislative branch is trying to force documents from the Executive branch, overriding executive privilege. This is a constitutional issue.

This level of committee intent is why judicial authority (the full house authorization to grant weight to legal subpoena power) becomes much more important.

The House must vote to authorize the committee investigation, and through that process the committee gains judicial authority.  A demand letter only becomes a subpoena, technically meaning: ‘a request for the production of documents with a penalty for non-compliance’, when the committee has judicial authority.

Absent judicial authority, all of these “subpoenas” are simply “letters”.  That is why this latest round of letters (they are calling subpoenas) do not carry a penalty for non-compliance.  The demands cannot carry a penalty because the demands do not contain judicial authority…. because the investigation was not authorized by the chamber.

Notice the letters are from Oversight, Intel and Foreign Affairs.  Those three committees are outside the jurisdiction of the committee that holds power to write articles of impeachment, the House Judiciary Committee (Chairman Jerry Nadler).  As lawyer Ristvan noted:
It is well established that the House has subpoena powers concerning legislative oversight. But that power is limited to matters concerning A1§8. Neither foreign policy (Ukraine call) nor impeachment have any nexus to A1§8. Such subpoenas do not abrogate executive privilege.
It is established (SCOTUS concerning Nixon impeachment investigation) that IF the House votes to have the Judiciary committee formally conduct an impeachment investigation, then that committee (only) has subpoena power, and that power CAN pierce thru executive privilege. No such vote has been taken.
In essence, Schiff, Cummings and Engel are on a non-constitutional, non-authorized (by chamber) partisan fishing expedition – given the label “official impeachment inquiry” via a non-constitutional unilateral decree by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi (Speaker), Schiff (Intel), Cummings (Oversight), and Engel (Foreign Affairs) are attempting to use non-jurisdictional committees (no authority within the impeachment process) to gain evidence to relay to the committee that would have impeachment authority, the House Judiciary Committee.

Presumably once their assembled information arrives at the Judiciary, Jerry Nadler’s Lawfare staff will write articles of impeachment.  This is the process they are following; however, this partisan approach completely cuts-out the rights of the minority (republicans) and the impeachment due process rights of the executive.  It really is quite a scheme.

Pelosi appears to be waiting until all of the assembled evidence arrives at the Judiciary Committee before she will call for a full house vote to authorize the impeachment investigation.  Again, manipulating the process.

In the interim, none of these demand letters carry any penalty for non-compliance because Pelosi’s crew doesn’t want to engage the court system.  In these latest letters they have retracted the ¹prior threats (example below) to use non-compliance as “evidence of obstruction” because it’s likely any “obstruction articles” would be easily challenged in court on the basis the underlying subpoena lacked judicial authority.
[¹In my opinion Lawfare messed up when they previously included that threat, and now they’ve recognized what could happen with judicial branch backlash.]

Following the 2018 mid-term election I wrote THIS:

When it comes to political weaponization and political power constructs the Marxists have exceptional work ethics; they will outwork anyone on the other side who opposes them. They are far, far, better at political strategy and scheme than conservative politicians. Part of the reason for their success is that crooks, cons and swindlers are far more cunning than honorable, virtuous and moral people. It is unfortunate, but true; and the same truth applies beyond politics.
[…] We are the normal people who don’t spend every moment of our day scheming, conniving, and developing plans to dismantle the lives of your freedom loving community and rebuild it as a collective society.  For these Marxists who are about to take power that’s all they do.   Every moment of their existence they spend thinking about how to gain power and dominate, 24/7/365  that’s all they do…. (link)

…I stand by every word!

Liberals Hate Free Speech When We Presume To Use It



The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall

I have a confession to make: I hate the pseudo-conservative scribblings of David French with the same kind of smoldering loathing I reserve for foot fungus, movies about spunky young women who triumph over the patriarchy, and the music of Maroon 5. With rare exceptions explicable due only to the vagaries of chance, I hate his prose, his premises, his conclusions and his insufferable fussiness. I contend that his writings are fit only to be served up to traitors and terrorists at Gitmo to wring out confessions, and the only thing I enjoy about his terrible, terrible views is that they validate my longstanding negative impression of Army JAGs. But it has never occurred to me that David French should be barred from writing whatever the hell he pleases.

The whole idea that, simply because his opinions make me long for the joyous peace of death, he should be in any way prevented from sharing them with those people who inexplicably wish to endure them, and those unfortunate enough to stumble upon them unawares, is utterly foreign to me and to all actual conservatives. Censorship, to us, is both alien and appalling, like an Oberlin College feminist hot oil twerk-off. 

We default to free speech. Until recently, we just sort of assumed the First Amendment would always be a thing, with a few infamous exceptions in academia. But now our whole country seems to be morphing into one big college campus, albeit one with a much lower admission standard than our universities. 

Basically, the admission standard for our country is that you sneak over the border, which brings us to our first example of the new speech gestapo-ization of America. In New York, some sort of government “human rights” agency has decreed that calling illegal aliens “illegal aliens” is a crime. You can be charged for saying something, just like in grim police states such as Cuba, Red China and the UK

Similarly, Scat Francisco decided to officially label the NRA a “terrorist organization,” with all sorts of attendant sanctions appended thereto. Now, I’ve been out of law school for about a quarter century, but I seem to remember that there’s this thing called the Second Amendment, and you would think that people are allowed to exercise the First Amendment in order to speak freely in support of an actually-existing, non-penumbra-riffic, non-emanating hunk of the Bill of Rights. But apparently, in the Street Feces Capital of the West, the municipal government feels fine attempting to punish you for saying things its city’s pinko population dislikes.

That’s really the key – the fact that our garbage elite and its pathetic minions are horrified that people like you and me might dare to say unapproved things. Back in the day, a little dissent was tolerable. The elite had the NYT and WaPo, AP and UPI, and NBC, CBS and ABC, and if they gate-kept you out of them you were basically relegated to running off inky handbills on the ditto machine in your garage. Dissent was domesticated, controlled and, critically, absolutely no threat to the status quo.

Fast forward to today. After schooling by visionaries like Andrew Breitbart, we have leveraged new technologies and new forums, such as social media,  to not merely break open the elite’s guarded gates but to throw down their walls altogether. Anyone can talk, and anyone does – BTW, follow me on Twitter and check out my non-traditional books – which means the elite’s monopoly on information, the source of its greatest power, is shriveling up and blowing away in the winds of change.

And look at what happens when unapproved ideas escape into the public consciousness – you get unapproved leaders such as Donald Trump instead of licensed, chipped and neutered meat marionettes like that puppy-tormenting, passive-aggressive sissy Mitt Romney. You get people who noticed that the ice age they were promised in the 70s was never delivered and therefore now doubt that Gaia’s wrath is truly bearing down upon us for our carbon sins. You get people pointing out that Gropey Joe’s Bogota fairy dust-whiffing, bro’s wife-scoring son maybe possibly perhaps did not possess the kind of in-depth expertise in Ukrainian gas exploration engineering that might justify his $50K a month payday.

This wrong-thinking cannot be allowed to happen. Free speech was supposed to be a tool for the liberal elite to acquire and maintain power, not for the likes of you and me to exercise the prerogatives of citizenship.

So, we now have executive ordertrix Kamala Harris taking a break from busting moms of teens who cut math class to demand that giant corporations stifle the ability of liberals’ political opponents to communicate with the voters. She wants Twitter to cut off Donald Trump because she doesn’t like what he says.

We have some guy in the New York Times explaining that “Free Speech Is Killing Us,” which would seem like an odd position for a newspaper to embrace until you remember that there are no journalists in the mainstream media, only liberal transcriptionists trying to get the respect due neutral truth tellers while also acting as flacks for the Dems.

We have some people babbling about arresting climate deniers – “There is no climate and never was, dagnabit!” – while others, like Chuck Todd and a bunch of media outlets merely announce that they will ignore those who dissent by pointing out inconvenient truths, such as how the weather cultists have literally never been right about a single one of their apocalyptic predictions. 

Let’s not even get into the active censorship practiced by the complicit comrades of Silicon Valley with the blessing of the ruling caste. Their goal is to set boundaries on our thought and our expression that are coextensive with the personal preferences of the average 23-year-old, daddy issue-having SJW gender studies grad.

The liberal elite never really believed in free speech, at least not for you. It was always a pose. And now that you are able to effectively exercise that right, they are livid that we peasants can point out as our nation’s nominal leadership class’s unbroken track record of failure. 

So, don’t be like the David Frenchs of the world, always ascribing pure motives to the bad guys and being all “Oh well I never!” when we Normals fight back against the oppression the ruling caste heaps upon us. Get woke. Understand our enemy. Understand its objectives. Understand that in its hive mind, you have no rights, only the obligation to conform and obey the liberal elite. 

It’s no surprise that the Second Amendment follows right on the heels of the First. The liberal elitists certainly get it. The only right they hate more than your right to say what you think is your right to own the kind of firepower you need to defend your right to say what you think. 

Kanye West Does It Again



Kanye West is at it again, going directly against the grain of the cultural Left.
Over the weekend, the rapper was in Salt Lake City holding court at one of his Christian Sunday Services.

While speaking to the crowd, Kanye called voting for a candidate based on skin color “mental slavery.”

Furthermore, he hailed Republicans’ place in the racial history of the U.S., referencing a member for which the party seems to rarely get credit — Honest Abe:
“That’s the Republican Party that freed the slaves.”
As relayed by the Washington Examiner, West touted everyone’s right to vote their conscience without race being a factor.
“And we got the right, right? We got a right to our opinions, right? You black, so you can’t like Trump? I ain’t never made a decision only based on my color. That’s a form of slavery, mental slavery.”
Kanye West At Sunday Service Salt Lake City talked about the Republican Party of Lincoln freeing the slaves and how he supports Trump: “I ain’t never made a decision only based on my color. That’s a form of slavery, mental slavery.” pic.twitter.com/0Cwom01ipF
— Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) October 5, 2019
Kanye’s on a bit of a roll where the GOP is concerned. According to The Daily Wire, during his appearance on David Letterman’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction just a few months ago, the unpeggable music star went to bat for The Donald:
Speaking with David Letterman on his Netflix show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, in May of this year, West said that Trump supporters have the right to feel what they feel without being bullied by liberals.
“This is like my thing with Trump — we don’t have to feel the same way, but we have the right to feel what we feel,” West told Letterman.
And almost exactly one year ago, the entrepreneur gave people fits when he visited the President at the White House — for…Trigger Warning…a conversation (here).

In Utah, the controversial figure — who hasn’t tweeted in nearly ten months — encouraged people to stay off social media. It will, he claimed, put you under the thumb of those who want to control you.
West, who hasn’t tweeted since New Year’s, also railed against social media: “Do not read comments on the Internet. These people don’t know you like that. Social media is designed to make you think slower. … They want to slow you down and control you” pic.twitter.com/1BGpA5prGt
— Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) October 5, 2019
That seems like good advice. So long as you don’t stay off RedState.
Kanye also encouraged gratitude — not to Trump or Republicans, but something much different:
West: “Who said, ‘thank you, Kanye?’ What I want you to say is, ‘thank you, Jesus.’” pic.twitter.com/yxyFswXVOV
— Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) October 5, 2019

Democrat Depravity: “When You Must Cheat Because You Cannot Win.”


The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall


The Democrats will lose 34-38 states in 2020. President Trump will be re-elected by a larger margin of electoral votes than he did in 2016, and the leftist crazies of American politics and media will have solely themselves to blame.


I’ve been saying this on-air more or less since President Trump was elected the first time.  

But his chances have only gotten better since my original prognostications. 


While Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff believe they might finally have their “gotcha” moment with the president, he has continually called their bluffs and has now exposed them to Joe and Susie Lunchbucket for who they truly are—partisan shills who hate him more than they love America. 


They lie to the media in an attempt to enlist the complicit audiences in order to fire up the gobsmack machine hoping to create a backlash based on outrage.


But none of it is working.

Multiple polls give him record highs currently, and more indicate he is ahead of where Obama was at this point.

The problem is, Lunchbucket America is not as uninformed as they once were. They aren’t ticked with the president, and the more the Democrats attempt to cheat—the more outraged they become—with Democrats.

The Democrats have also been their own worst enemy.

So blinded by the smack down of an election route in 2016, (and yes according to the rules of the 50 contests in 50 states—Trump thrashed them), they have been committed to the idea that removing him is more important than getting things done.

Simultaneously, I believe they hoped that in doing so the entanglement would occupy Trump’s time and attention and that he would be less (or perhaps completely) ineffective.

The value of having a real-world CEO who understands how to do multiple things at once is that he has easily accomplished far more than the average president in his first term. All while harassing the Democrats in return on Twitter.

He’s kept 87 campaign pledges in term one.

Obama kept one.

Bush kept two.

In doing so he’s also changed the landscape for how the Democrats have traditionally executed their political goals. They normally depend upon judicial fiat to hold up whatever gender-bending, morality-shaping, norm-busting crazy idea they come up with.

With literally hundreds of judges confirmed, and more waiting to be confirmed, he has significantly returned the entire federal judiciary back to a strict-construction, author’s-original-intent, focus to the courts.

All this time the Democrats wasted their days. Instead of coming up with bonafide new ideas to solve problems, they drilled down on hoax after hoax. 

The Democrats are so unnervingly unsure of themselves that they can’t even do their fake impeachment properly. They prevent the Republicans from getting to call witnesses of their own. And in one notable attempted showdown a subcommittee chair attempted to shame a congressional member as to his line of questioning and warned he’d not be allowed to continue if he didn’t get off the issue at hand. 

The Democrats pretend not to know about how the dossier got written—but they wrote it. They pretend they know nothing of the fraud in the FISA applications—but they authored them. They pretended that Blasey-Ford was just an innocent woman who chose to speak—but they recruited, trained, and coached her. They pretended to have no knowledge of these current and forthcoming “whistleblowers”—but they are actually creating them.

They lie—but accuse the president of doing so.

They consult with foreign powers to invent dirt on an actual opponent—but want to impeach a president who is trying to ferret out those who shoveled the dirt in the 2016 corruption.

They ignore a vice president from their party pushing his thumb down on the scale, and bragging about withholding military aid from allies, while accusing the president of doing so, all the while lacking evidence of such.

The Democrats lie, cheat, steal and slander because they have spent their time hating one man.

And what’s that one man’s huge crime against the world and the human race?

That he loves America more than they do. So much so that he puts up with all this garbage and is still returning America to its unchallenged status of greatness.

And in Joe and Susie Lunchbucket’s universe that is no crime at all.

President Trump Announces Turkish Unilateral Invasion of Northern Syria


Things are about to get very interesting and very uncomfortable for NATO.  President Trump has announced that Turkey is about to launch a unilateral invasion into Northern Syria… There is going to be a scramble amid many geopolitical interests.

First, the announcement:
[White House]  –  Today, President Donald J. Trump spoke with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey by telephone. Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria.
The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial “Caliphate,” will no longer be in the immediate area.
The United States Government has pressed France, Germany, and other European nations, from which many captured ISIS fighters came, to take them back, but they did not want them and refused.
The United States will not hold them for what could be many years and great cost to the United States taxpayer. Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area captured over the past two years in the wake of the defeat of the territorial “Caliphate” by the United States.  (more)
Next let’s establish the foundation for the scramble:

♦There was a 2014 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) voted and approved by Senate committee permitting military action in Syria against the backdrop of chemical weapon use and terrorism – it never went anywhere.  The Obama administration used the Bush-era AUMF directed at combating terrorism. With ISIS defeated by President Trump that sketchy 2002 interventionist authorization ends.

♦Also remember in October 2014 then Vice-President Biden accidentally told the truth when he told an audience that Recep Erdogan was specifically responsible for the rise of ISIS in Syria; and that Turkey had actually armed al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, ISIS, and provided assistance.
  • Turkey is a member of NATO.
  • Turkey has previously used its NATO membership as a shield to stop threats from Russia.  Remember Turkey shooting down a Russian fighter jet?
  • Turkish President Recep Erdogan is a manipulative bad actor; a hostile dictator; and sympathetic to extremes within political Islam.  Erdogan has openly showcased his friendship with the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • Europe draws exclusive benefits from NATO defenses.  Europe would not take back the ISIS fighters captured in Syria that were EU nationals.
  • The ISIS prisoners we turn over to Turkey will be regarded less as prisoners, and more likely considered heroes by Erdogan’s govt. Remember, Erdogan gave the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership safe harbor in Turkey after they were kicked out of Qatar.
  • Unfortunately, it is likely Erdogan will attack the Kurdish forces in Northern Syria.
  • The Kurds are U.S. allies; and this will be the point of contention for the neocons.
  • Turkey will invade NE Syria, but -depending on current strength- Turkey runs the risk of a counter-attack by the Syrian Army, and potentially Russia.
With the European nations, NATO allies, refusing to take their ISIS fighters back as prisoners, President Trump has made a deal with Erdogan to take them.

In the announcement President Trump has made it clear that any action by Turkey into Syria is unilateral; there will be no assistance by the U.S. on any aspect; including if Turkey is counter-attacked by Russia/Syria or organized Kurdish forces.

Essentially, Trump is leaving Erdogan naked to a myriad of his enemies if Erdogan does cross the border.  The U.S. part of the NATO shield is removed.  The Europeans will likely not evoke the NATO defense treaty without the U.S.  Heck, the EU is essentially spineless without the power of the U.S. military.

President Trump is calling out the duplicity of the entire situation by calling all of their bluffs.  President Trump is calling-out: NATO, weak EU ‘allies’ and Turkey.

In essence, this White House announcement is a major Gordian knot being cut.

It is unlikely President Erdogan expected to have this framework made so public.  This rather loud declaration by President Trump seems strategic in that it could make duplicitous Erdogan think twice about the actual military invasion itself.

However, Erdogan is also a rabid ideologue and he wants to recreate the Ottoman empire… so he’ll likely go ahead regardless of cost.

Down the road…. instead of those ISIS prisoners being held in European jails; and considering the sympathetic Turkish handlers; those ISIS fighters will eventually make their way home without anyone knowing.   However, the EU has created that issue by refusing to step-up and take ownership.

That same weak European mindset could likely be facing another challenge surrounding what to do about NATO if Turkey loses this gamble.   However, again, another issue created by Europe.

FUBAR.


…But we’re out!


No, Mitt Romney Would Not Have Won In 2016


Bonchie reporting for RedState

In the midst of the latest dust up between Donald Trump and Mitt Romney, the latter of which went after the president over the current Ukraine mess, a common theme has popped up in the Trump-skeptical Republican circles.

It goes something like this: The only reason Trump won is because he faced a bad candidate and the only reason Mitt Romney lost is because he faced an unbeatable juggernaut, thereby Mitt Romney is actually a better candidate compared to Trump. The purpose of this argument is to assert that we need to go back in that direction post-Trump.
Do people dumping on Romney actually think Trump could have beaten Obama in 2012? Seriously?
— Christian Vanderbrouk (@UrbanAchievr) October 5, 2019
It’s worth noting that Mitt Romney — as well many of those in the 2016 Republican primary — likely would’ve beaten Hillary Clinton. She was a uniquely terrible candidate.
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) October 5, 2019
You see this come up anytime someone criticizes Romney’s performance in 2012, which Trump did earlier over the weekend. I suppose it makes certain people feel better to assert that Romney was actually the superior candidate, thereby reinforcing their biases against Trump. To be frank though, this analysis is total crap and relies on several false assumptions.

First, to say Romney would beat Hillary because she was a “uniquely terrible candidate” means we must assume Romney was not a terrible candidate himself. I’d confidently posit that he was. Romney was every anti-Republican stereotype wrapped into a perfectly punch-able package. You could not have created a candidate in a lab that more perfectly alienated blue collar workers in the the rust belt than Mitt Romney. While a certain segment of Republican finds him extremely endearing, most people did not. They found him to be a contrived, flip-flopping politician with neither an ability to connect with the average voter, nor the politics to satisfy the metropolitan elite.

Secondly, the idea that Barack Obama was an unbeatable, flawless candidate is a complete rewriting of history. In reality, his approval ratings languished in the low 40s for much of the campaign until Romney became the set alternative (again testifying to the fact that Romney just wasn’t a very good candidate). Obama was mired in a bad economy and numerous foreign policy blunders. While it’s hard to remember now, there was actually a time in 2016 where a lot of prognosticators weren’t favoring the former president to be re-elected. Was Obama a better candidate than Hillary Clinton? Sure. But did he present some insurmountable challenge for an otherwise awesome candidate in Mitt Romney? Hardly, and it’s just excuse making for Romney’s failures to pretend otherwise.

Lastly,  we constantly hear that Romney won more popular votes in 2012 than Trump did in 2016. But so what? We don’t elect people via the popular vote, as I think we all know. The map Romney would have needed to win is far more important. Could he have won the rust belt? Let’s talk about it.
In reality it’s the “CW” that Trump was uniquely able to win a state like Wisconsin & that Romney never could’ve… except Romney got more votes in Wisconsin (1,408,746) than Trump (1,405,284) & did so against a vastly superior candidate who actually, you know, visited the state. https://t.co/BxG2AIK0JB
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) October 6, 2019
This analysis is extremely flawed.  Yes, Romney managed a handful more votes in WI than Trump. You know where he didn’t come close to besting Trump though? In Ohio, in Michigan, and in Pennsylvania.

For example, Trump won OH by 7 points and over 200,000 votes. He put up nearly 300,000 more votes there than Romney did, who lost the state by 3 points. In fact, Trump won more votes in 2016 in OH than Obama did in 2012. The same story plays out in Michigan, where Trump won more total votes than Romney and won the state, whereas Romney lost it by 10 points. But would Romney have somehow pulled CO and NV instead? Highly unlikely given how blue those states were turning before 2016 even happened. Perhaps he’d have made it closer, but closer doesn’t win elections.

Here’s the biggest false assumption though. Trump didn’t win 2016 simply because Hillary was a terrible candidate in a vacuum. He won because he relentlessly went after her, pulling her down to his level and ultimately overtaking her. In short, Trump is the one who made her a terrible candidate. Would Romney have done that? Would he have brought Juanita Broadrick to a debate or pushed the email scandal to its limits? Of course he wouldn’t have. He’d of told us how he’s friends with Hillary but that he just doesn’t think she’s right for the job. We’d have gotten the same milquetoast, low energy campaign he gave us in 2012 and it’d have led to his defeat.

The point is this. Enough pretending that Trump didn’t do something special in 2016. Enough downplaying his unique ability to connect with Democrat leaning blue collar workers. Stop acting like actually fighting back is irrelevant in politics. It’s time to start recognizing the political lessons Trump has exposed, even if you don’t like him personally.

So no, despite what some conservatives are saying, Mitt Romney would not have won in 2016 and he was not a superior candidate to Trump. 

Time to Stand and Fight Back


The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall

This dirt-digging, impeachment inquiry searching for any allegation to justify their coup d'état of a duly elected president has turned up the heat in an already divided Washington. It's also making those who elected and support President Trump fighting mad.

When former Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Thomas Homan recently testified to a House committee, he said what has been building among many previously polite conservatives. After watching those testifying against border wall funding being given extra time to make their point, Holman wanted his time to counter their statements. 

When Democratic Congresswoman Pamila Jayapal tried to cut off his comments for   exceeding his allotted time, Holman continued anyway, "Children are dying, cartels are getting rich. Why am I angry? Because you haven't done anything to fix it-nothing. There is no downside in securing our borders. There is no downside in illegal immigration being decreased. There is no downside in less drugs in this country."

When Jayapal tried to stop him again, "The time of the gentleman has expired," Holman continued his protest, "I've asked you politely to go beyond my time. You let other people go beyond their time. You work for me, I'm a taxpayer. I'm a taxpayer and you work for me."


Later on Fox News, Holman expanded his position to a rallying cry: "I'm not going to let them sit there and tell lies about my President, tell lies about the men and women at the border with ICE. It was lie after lie. It's my responsibility to set the record straight because they are out-and-out lies. They are not going to shut me down and not let me respond. No, I am not going to shut up. You lied. I'm under oath. You should be under oath. Just because you have a gavel doesn't make you queen for the day. It doesn't allow you to lie to
the American people."


Silent no more! Like many who voted for Trump, we're tired of the mainstream media parroting democratic talking points and fake news on social media being peddled as truth. We're tired of being told our conservative views offend them as they demand safe spaces on their college campuses. Every day, they blatantly offend all who voted for President Trump.

We're not dumb or bigots. We're not racist or fascists. We're patriotic Americans who work hard, support our communities, give time and money to charities, and vote for politicians committed to keeping America America. We're polite. We prefer dialogue over attacks, but we're tired of turning the other cheek while watching our elected President trashed, lied about, and trying to be impeached without evidence.

The Democrats have started what Rush Limbaugh has called a "cold civil war," and it's time to take a stand and fight back. As one voter said, "I would walk through broken glass to vote for Trump next November!" The silent majority is motivated.

As with Wendy's old ad, "Where's the beef?" When faced with the actual transcript of President Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian President, Representative, Adam Schiff was left with having to make up a parody of what he hoped Trump actually meant. They called an impeachment party and forgot to bring any evidence worthy of consideration. Now, they're left with frantically searching for anything to justify their miscalculation.

In fact, by taking a shot at Trump, they ended up hitting Biden. Trump defenders are fueling outrage at Vice President Joe Biden who publicly bragged about threatening to withhold funds from Ukraine if they did not fire the prosecutor, the prosecutor potentially looking into Hunter Biden? Where is their public investigation into "Quid Pro Joe" and the Democratic Senators who threatened to withhold funds unless Ukraine continued to help in the Russian collusion case against Trump? Where is the investigation into Rep. Schiff discussing a fake offer to provide non-existent compromising nude pictures of Trump?

Why do we like Trump? He doesn't take any of the Democrat lies sitting down. He fights for what he believes he was elected to do. He's making a difference instead of cowering in the face of their continuous assaults and three years of calling for his impeachment.

It's time to do everything we can to defeat every Democrat who votes to impeach. The gloves are coming off. Get every one of them out of Washington the old-fashioned way-by beating them at the ballot box. It's time we fight back as Trump is fighting back-with a passion and commitment to keep America great. Thank you for attempting to impeach our president; you've provided all the motivation we need to re-elect Trump and sweep Democrats out of House control.