The Real Reason Trump Lost in 2020

Maybe the Republicans need to take a closer look at the Democrats’ legal strategy. Or maybe Republicans need better judges.

by Adam L. Fuller for American Greatness

While arrogantly claiming to be the party of democracy, Democrats are constantly complaining that Republicans are impeding it. By their narrative, the United States is experiencing “democratic backsliding” because “MAGA Republicans” disrespect the electoral system. This was a major trope in Joe Biden’s Philadelphia speech last week.

But if any party is guilty of undermining democracy, it is the Democratic Party.

Consider, for example, the way Democrats use their well-organized political machine to keep third-party “spoilers” off ballots. They’ve used every sleazy lawsuit possible to prevent the left-wing Green Party from being an Election Day option for voters. They did this in 2020 and they are continuing to do it with the 2022 midterms.

Right now, in North Carolina, the Green Party is fighting in court to reverse the Democratic-controlled Board of Elections’ decision to keep the Greens’ U.S. Senate candidate, Matthew Hoh, off the November ballot. The board alleges too many of Hoh’s petition signatures are illegitimate. While the Greens admit a fraction of their signatures were collected by an outside firm, most of them were collected by their own volunteers and have been properly vetted. The board is using a perception of impropriety to allege that Hoh does not qualify for November ballot access. 

If this was merely an isolated incident, one might think the North Carolina Board of Elections had sufficient cause to deny the Greens ballot access in this one election. But the Hoh case is part of a long-running pattern that began well before even the 2020 election. Ever since 2000, when Ralph Nader ran for president on the Green Party ticket, and most recently in 2016 when Jill Stein was the Green Party’s spoiler candidate, Democrats have sought to avoid repeating the things that let Republicans achieve victories in key battleground states.

Clearly, both big parties have played this game. There have been instances in which the Republicans have sought to prevent the Libertarian Party from gaining ballot access for similar reasons. But those efforts have almost always resulted in failure. 

For example, claiming ineligibility, the Republicans recently asked the Texas Supreme Court to remove 23 Libertarian candidates from the November ballot, but their case was unsuccessful. The Democrats, however, have not only attempted to keep the Greens off ballots far more often than Republicans have tried the same scheme against the Libertarians, but they have also been more successful.

In 2016, the Democrats were so confident that Hillary Clinton would win that they made no effort to prevent Green Party nominee Jill Stein from appearing on ballots. Stein’s name was on all but six of the 51 ballots that year. Clinton’s defeat was a wake-up call to the Democrats about just how closely split the country had become. They saw from the post-election data that had Stein not been an option in key battleground states, Clinton would have been elected president.

Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by 44,292 votes. It is safe to say that most of the Green Party’s 49,941 votes would have gone to Clinton had Stein not been on the ballot. Similarly in Wisconsin, where Trump won the state by 22,748 votes, Stein’s 31,072 votes likely would have carried Clinton to victory there, too. Even more glaring is Michigan, where Stein’s 51,463 votes would have been more than enough for the Democrats to compensate for Clinton’s 10,704 vote deficit.

Now consider the 2020 election. Joe Biden won all three of those contested states and Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins did not appear on ballots in either Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. In fact, Hawkins’ name was missing from 20 of the 51 ballots. One such state was Arizona, where Trump lost by a paltry 10,457 votes. Had Hawkins been on the ballot rather than just receiving a little more than 1,000 write-in votes, it could have made all the difference for Trump.

Of course, the Democratic Party is now aware of the degree to which the Green Party is an election spoiler. Knowing this, officials made sure voters did not get a chance to vote Green by legally challenging their applications for ballot access. In Pennsylvania, Democrats successfully fought to get the state Supreme Court to knock the Greens off the ballot over the minor technicality that the party did not hand deliver its filing papers. Apparently, for the Democratic Party, a nationwide election can be done safely by mail, but mailing in an election filing is beyond the pale. Likewise, in Wisconsin, the state supreme court ruled that the Greens could not be on the ballot because of petition “discrepancies.”

An alternative conclusion is that the COVID-19 pandemic made it significantly more difficult for third parties to gather enough petition signatures, and that is why the Greens only made 31 ballots. But the problem with that argument is that, notwithstanding the pandemic and despite the Republican Party also benefiting by keeping their own third-party spoilers off the ballots, the Libertarian Party still managed to get their nominee, Jo Jorgenson, on all 51 ballots in 2020.

Maybe the Republicans need to take a closer look at the Democrats’ legal strategy. Or maybe Republicans need better judges. 

X22, Christian Patriot news, and more- Sept 7

 

What's worse then waking up anxious to hear something you've waited all years to hear about? Waking up from a long nap expecting to report on something, and there's nothing to report on. 😩

Here's tonight's news:

The Two Most Destructive Frauds in History

Through deliberate and easily reversed policies, the cost-of-living in America is being elevated to empower the wealthy and impoverish everyone else in the name of equity and fighting climate change.

by Edward Ring for American Greatness

It’s getting harder and harder not to abandon faith in the institutions we once regarded as respectable and relied on to keep the country moving. It is harder still to avoid rejecting unequivocally what has become their core governing premises, which seem to be entirely different from what we once believed them to be. 

So here goes: the entire “climate crisis” is an opportunistic hoax; the entire “equity” (along with “diversity” and “inclusion”) movement is a corrupt fraud. This hoax and this fraud have permeated and overwhelmed every formerly respectable sector of American life, with disastrous consequences we’ve only just begun to feel.

If you are someone who still has faith in the ultimate resilience of the institutions that once made America great, try researching positive new ideas. Try to identify and promote solutions to genuine challenges we face as a nation. Invariably, as you peruse the promotional literature of today’s innovators, no matter what it is you’ve found, you’ll have to sift through endless drivel about carbon this and sustainable that, along with diversity this and equity that, before you might find any facts that matter.

This is a huge problem. Obsessive focus on climate and equity priorities, even supposing those to be important, obscures the essence of pretty much anything substantive one is trying to achieve and deflects attention away from whether or not a new product or innovation might have genuine value. We get it. Less carbon. More diversity. But does the proposed solution work?

Thanks to the obfuscating filters of climate and equity, separating useful ideas from monstrous scams is far more laborious than it should be. And all the while, the scams are getting bigger.

Climate and Equity Politics Will Destroy America

In the name of staving off climate change, the standard of living of all but the wealthiest Americans is being deliberately reduced by people who are utterly indifferent to the fate of the rest. This deliberate destruction doesn’t have to be understood as a conspiracy because so much of it is merely the logical response to an open, incessantly trumpeted “consensus” that appears noble in its aspirations but is diabolical in its impact.

It goes something like this: The climate emergency, along with the inequity of white privilege, are existential threats to humanity, and therefore both require a “reset” to put things right.

To make it almost impossible for Americans to unite and stop the destruction of their way of life, in case the sacred and urgent consensus regarding climate and equity isn’t enough, Americans are also trained to hate each other. And that trope, repeated endlessly and everywhere in myriad iterations, goes like this: If you are a member of the heteropatriarchy, you are an oppressor. If you’re not, you’re a victim. 

Of course, the entire narrative must be questioned because it’s all a pack of lies.

Every scientist, every climate “expert,” who speaks publicly on climate change is well aware that his career and reputation depends on saying precisely the right thing. Expressing doubt could be costly. Those scientists who do stand up to the “consensus” are typically retired and less vulnerable to having their livelihoods terminated. But these scientists are labeled “deniers” and banned from social media as soon as they develop a following of any consequence. So the mainstream media ignores them unless the purpose is to smear their reputations.

As for “equity,” even black conservatives cannot share basic truths. Intact families with a father and mother are the most reliable guarantor of individual success in life. But if you say this, as the eloquent Larry Elder often does, you are chastised as “the black face of white supremacy.” 

According to no less than the Smithsonian Institution, if you have a work ethic, a useful education, if you are punctual, polite, self-reliant, and think rationally, you are giving in to “white dominant culture.” If, on the other hand, you embrace thug culture and commit crimes at a disproportionate rate, your offenses are excused because you are a victim of systemic white racism.

This infantile nonsense—and those examples barely begin to describe it—has been spewed into American culture for at least two generations. It has turned the average voter into a Pavlovian stooge, completely unaware that it’s not white privilege, climate change, or racism that is to blame for the average price of rent to double in the last 12 months or the price of electricity to triple, or the price of food to quadruple in some instances. Rather, this reset trauma is a logical next step in the consolidation of wealth and power in America into the hands of a few hundred billionaires.

Thwarting Obvious Solutions

Listed below are some of the major problems Americans face, along with obvious solutions. Here as well are the reasons our elite claim these solutions are unacceptable, the real reason for their objections, the solutions they’re pushing instead, and why their solutions are dreadfully wrong.

We have expensive energy. The rational solution is to develop more oil and gas, along with nuclear power. 

We’re having a drought. The rational solution is to increase the supply of water by collecting storm runoff in new reservoirs and aquifers, desalinate water from the ocean, and recycle wastewater. 

We have a food crisis. Irrigate more crops with the enhanced water supply, let cattle graze in the forests, and build more meat processing plants. 

We have forest fires, and lumber is too expensive. Bring back the timber industry. 

We have a housing crisis. Abolish the ridiculously overwritten building code requirements, relax the zoning laws that prohibit urban expansion, quit charging criminally high fees for building permits, and deregulate the industries that supply building materials.

None of this can be done, however, because all of it would supposedly destroy the environment. Would it? Notice the common thread: the obvious, common sense solutions involve fostering abundance, something Americans used to be good at doing. But the preferred solution to every problem now is to conserve, to restrict, to ration, and to pay higher prices. 

When you impose regulatory barriers in the name of sustainability, you don’t merely raise the prices of water, energy, food, and housing. You drive out of business the small competitors that might emerge to serve the demand for these products and services. They don’t have the economies of scale to navigate the regulations, pay the permits, and fight off litigation. Meanwhile, monopolistic multinational corporations with sunk costs and strong balance sheets collect windfall profits because the demand-driven prices they can charge increase far more than their production expenses.

It is impossible to overstate how centralized financial power in America has already become. BlackRock, an investment fund dedicated to the divestment of American fossil fuels, now has over $10 trillion under management. BlackRock is only the biggest of many powerful investment funds promoting “ESG” (short for “environmental, social, and governance,” these are climate change and equity-inspired criteria used to screen investments), with the declared goal of eliminating fossil fuel. Any energy-literate person knows this is impossible. They will not succeed. But they can, and will, make the price of oil and gas prohibitively expensive.

It isn’t just BlackRock and the big hedge funds, however, that have tacitly agreed to turn America into a nation of lords and serfs. With a few heroic exceptions, it’s every individual and company with a billion or more dollars to throw around. 

Homeownership was once the one sure way Americans had to build generational wealth. But housing is becoming more and more unaffordable. A middle class family cannot compete with institutional investors who buy homes by the thousand, and pay for them in cash. To help keep housing prices high, they’re letting foreign buyers get a piece of the action. That keeps real estate portfolios appreciating, and it also helps collateralize the dollar. Who wants Chinese gold, when you can buy American real estate with your surplus dollars? 

And to make sure that every time a family farm patriarch dies, the land gets purchased by a multinational corporation or a billionaire hedge fund or a foreign sovereign wealth fund, cram down the production of fertilizer, then jack up its price along with every other agricultural input from seeds and tractor fuel to irrigation water, and drive them out of business.

Do all this for the earth. Do it for sustainability.

Never mind that renewables are as destructive to ecosystems as conventional energy. Never mind that without large-scale use of commercial fertilizer, ordinary citizens in developed nations are driven into poverty, and those in poorer nations starve to death. Protect the climate! Fight racism! This is vacuous, unwarranted, evil nonsense, and yet we have to hear Judy Woodruff, Lester Holt, Nora O’Donnell, David Muir, and all the rest of the thespian marionettes who masquerade as journalists intone this litany day after day, until we’re so numb we no longer realize we’re being fed garbage.

What’s happening to Americans right now is a monstrous crime. Through deliberate and easily reversed policies, the cost of living in America is being elevated to empower the wealthy and impoverish everyone else. The justification for all of this is the climate emergency that must be countered by any means necessary, and systemic racism that must be eradicated.

Climate alarmists and equity fanatics must be confronted. If they are sincere, they must be shown how they’ve been lied to. If they are opportunists, they must be held accountable. Candid and unequivocal rejection of the climate and equity agenda does not diminish concern for the environment and respect for the dignity of all individuals. In fact, it restores authenticity to those sentiments and opens pathways to practical solutions for genuine challenges. But if the people pushing this extreme agenda are not stopped cold—and soon—they will destroy our civilization.

Opinion: Kathy Griffin’s Threat of 'Civil War' Shows Why It’s Always Doomsday for Democrats

Cameron Arcand reporting for RedState 

Comedian-ish Kathy Griffin would like to believe that Republicans taking back control of Congress could spell disaster for the republic, as RedState’s Bonchie reported earlier Tuesday.

“If you don’t want a Civil War, vote for Democrats in November. If you do want Civil War, vote Republican,” Griffin tweeted.

Griffin’s tweet is short but powerful, and not in a good way. While her concern might be authentic, that does not mean anybody should be taking it seriously. It’s true that some people are calling for a national divorce (usually peaceful), but the likelihood of an actual civil war coming down the pipeline shortly is laughable and unrealistic.

In fact, her tweet serves as a crucial lesson in the dangers of hyper-partisan rhetoric on the American psyche.

The institution of Hollywood and melodrama go hand and hand, and it used to stick to the silver screen. It’s now commonplace for their disposition toward hyperbole to trickle down into politics. Of course, leftists in general always use binary choices in order to fear-monger regular Americans into believing that the opposing side is dangerous.

Those who are politically aware are all too familiar with hearing politicians and activists saying “This is the most important election of our lifetime.” Griffin’s comment is nothing more than an extreme version of that cliche. If someone ever uses this sentiment, they’re either flat-out lying, willfully ignorant, or have an agenda of their own.

Yes, the upcoming midterm is important, but it’s probably not going to go down in history as the most consequential midterm of the century.

Here’s an indisputable truism of America: Voters are never going to be bullied, and they are in fact more emboldened when the opposite side of the aisle villainizes them. Voters are not asking for civil war by supporting Republicans– they’re asking for their groceries to be less expensive.

Whether someone decides to vote Republican or Democrat, they do not need a celebrity telling them that their choice will bring destruction to the United States. Griffin is only dividing the country further with her rhetoric, especially because there are at least a few people who legitimately believe that war will break out if Republicans gain a few more seats in the House and Senate.

It’s always doomsday for Democrats, and Kathy Griffin is no exception. Regardless of party, the choice of Americans needs to be respected. Instead of choosing kindness, Griffin would rather purchase “loss insurance” early, which would give her and fellow hyperpartisan permission to act as if the end is near if they lose in November.

Joe Biden Attempts to Change Shape in Deranged Public Display

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

Unsurprisingly, the Democrat Party remains in denial about what it has become over the last several years. Once upon a time, a liberal could loudly proclaim themselves as standing for the “working man” without receiving four Pinocchios. That period has passed, though, and Joe Biden has apparently not gotten the message.

On Monday, he gave a series of Labor Day speeches in which he came across as deranged, both because of how he appeared and what he said. Things got so bad that he had what some are describing as a Howard Dean moment, and I think agree. Take a look for yourself.

It sure looks like Biden’s handlers didn’t quite get his drug cocktail dialed in. The shrieking and the anger, it’s uncomfortable to watch. You’d also be forgiven for asking exactly what he’s even talking about. How have the Democrats beaten “Pharma?”

After all, isn’t it the Democrats who have made Moderna, Pfizer, and other Big Pharma outfits subsidiaries of their party? The Biden administration has directed billions and billions of dollars into the industry. They’ve even tried to mandate, at the federal level, that you get a never-ending amount of COVID vaccines and boosters. To be sure, there is no bigger fan of the Biden administration over the last two years than Big Pharma.

So to see Biden start shouting about how he beat them should make anyone scratch their head. Is he just that senile? Or does he think Americans are just that stupid? It’s probably a little of both, but a message put out by Biden’s social media team on the same day provided a little more insight into the strategy being deployed.

It’s absurd enough to claim that Biden and the Democrats are anti-Big Pharma, but to see the president now try to claim he’s anti-Wall Street as well is downright unbelievable.

What are the facts? Joe Biden received over 2.5 times as many donations from Wall Street as Donald Trump did. That trend has carried over into the mid-terms as big business continues to strongly prefer the Democrat Party, with woke-ness becoming commonplace in executive offices. Are we really to believe that Wall Street prefers Republicans but just happens to give the vast majority of its donations to Democrats? Come on, no one actually thinks that’s true, and it’s ludicrous for Biden to now pretend he’s standing up against big business and hedge funds.

The Democrat Party is now a party almost exclusively controlled by over-educated, wealthy white elites. It is not the party of blue-collar workers, with its only remaining connection to the middle-class coming in the form of propping up of labor unions that then funnel back cash in return.

Biden’s weak attempt at shifting shape into a guy who understands the struggle is not going to pass muster with anyone that has two brain cells to rub together. At the end of the day, he’s a Big Pharma-loving rich guy who spends every weekend at his beach house in Delaware. Wall Street loves him because he loves them back. The president may want to run from that reality, but he can’t, and his gaslighting should be laughed out of the room.

Two More EU Aluminum Smelters Going Offline Due to Excessive Energy Costs, Aluminum Shortages Predicted

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse 

On one hand losing the ability to manufacture aluminum is bad news for any economic activity that requires the use of aluminum.  However, on the other hand, this politically guided ‘new world’ we are going toward doesn’t need aluminum, because you cannot eat it.

Predictably 2023 is going to be the beginning of several ‘Build Back Better’ decades where the ownership of material things disappears.  When your wages are focused on sustaining yourself with housing, food and energy, all of those other purchases become mere indulgences.

Sustainable life in equity with the needs of the planet, means returning to the era when you received an orange or a piece of chocolate as a Christmas gift, and you are thankful. Cars, appliances, phones or other types of luxury durable goods are indulgences which become out of reach for the worker class.  Thus, removing smelters, iron works, factories and other heavy industrial machines only makes sense.

As meager wage earnings are focused on purchases to sustain life, there is little room for indulgences.  As the World Economic Forum has stated, we will own nothing and we will be happy.  Happiness experiences will be provided and the virtual metaverse will fill our needs.

LONDON, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Two more European aluminium smelters are powering down as the region’s energy crisis shows no signs of abating.

Slovenia’s Talum will reduce output to just a fifth of capacity and Alcoa (AA.N) will curtail one line at its Lista plant in Norway.

Close to 1 million tonnes of European primary aluminum capacity is now offline and more may follow as a notoriously power-hungry sector struggles to cope with soaring energy costs.  (read more)

Again, I return to the imagery surrounding our foundational questions, and hopefully things are starting to make sense.

Wow, Europe Household Electric Bills Estimated to Jump by $2 Trillion Next Year, That’s 12% of Their GDP

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse 

What is predicted to happen in Europe is just stunning, literally stunning.

♦Context – According to official data from the World Bank, the combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the European Union was just over $17 trillion US dollars in 2021. That is the last calculated measure.  The combined GDP value of European Union represents roughly 12.78 percent of the world economy.

According to analysts for Goldman Sachs, the current energy crisis in Europe has increased electricity prices at a rate that is increasing almost daily.  Within the data it is now estimated that households within the EU will pay an additional $2 trillion for electricity in the next year.

Put that $2 trillion into context with their GDP, and that scale of energy cost would be wiping out 12% of the purchasing strength within the total EU economy.  Forget about buying anything else, if this analysis is correct Europeans will be buying food and energy, nothing else.

If you consider what that means, it is bordering on full economic collapse of western Europe.

What is being described above is what we posited when we outlined the impact of the “Energy Economy” {Go Deep}.  When you suck 12% of the purchasing power out of an economic engine simply to maintain the status of current energy use, everything else starts to collapse.

Also keep in mind we are only talking about the direct impact of $2 trillion in electricity cost.  The downstream consequence is far greater because everything created, produced, or manufactured, including food, is dependent on electricity – which will drive the final cost to produce of all those products even higher.

The damage is almost unimaginable in scale.

[Fortune] – European households should brace for an expensive winter owing to the continent’s deepening energy crisis that will likely send electricity and heating bills soaring.

Energy affordability in Europe is reaching a “tipping point” that could peak next year, with total spending on bills across the continent growing by 2 trillion euros ($2 trillion), a Goldman Sachs research team, led by Alberto Gandolfi and Mafalda Pombeiro, said in a note published Sunday.

Many European households are already feeling the bite of a steadily worsening energy crisis, brought on by Russian natural gas producers intermittently pausing flows along the critical Nord Stream pipeline following Western sanctions this year.

Energy bills at some restaurants and coffee shops have already more than tripled this year, but with threats looming that natural gas supply from Russia could become even tighter as the Ukraine War rages on, analysts warn that Europe’s coming struggles are set to rival some of the worst energy crises on record.

“The market continues to underestimate the depth, the breadth, and the structural repercussions of the crisis,” the Goldman Sachs analysts wrote. “We believe these will be even deeper than the 1970s oil crisis.” (read more)

The economic contagion will not be isolated to Europe.

The impacts to the social fabric are also almost unquantifiable in scale.

Example: What happens to migration patterns when economic migrants are now considered a threat to scarce resources?

While the US is not quite in the same level of energy desperation, what we were discussing last week is an example of the problem we too may face.

Let’s say you are an average USA Main Street household with an income around $100,000/yr, and you now face an increase in electricity rates from $300 to $500 due to Joe Biden’s new national energy policy known as the Green New Deal.  That’s $200 more per month for this initial economic/energy “transition” moment.

That extra $200/month equates to $2,400 per year.

That $2,400 per year is static economic activity.  Meaning nothing additional was created, and nothing additional was generated.  The captured $2,400 is simply an increase in the price of a preexisting expense.

Take that expense and expand it to your community of 100 friends and family households.  The $2,400 now becomes $240,000 in cost that doesn’t generate anything.  $240,000 is removed from the community economy.  $240,000 is no longer available for purchasing other goods or services within this community of 100 households.

The economic purchasing power of the 100-household community is reduced by $240,000 per year.

Take that expense and expand it to your county of 10,000 households.  Now you are reducing the county economic activity by $24 million.  In this county of 10,000 households, $24 million in economic transactions have been wiped out.  Meals at restaurants, purchases of goods and services, or any other spending of the $24 million within the county of 10,000 households (approximately 25,000 residents) has been lost.

Now expand that expense to a larger county, quantified as a mid-size county, of 50,000 households.  The mid-sized county has lost $120 million in household economic activity, simply to sustain the status quo on electricity rates.  Nothing extra has been generated. $120 million is lost.  The activity within the county of 50,000 households shrinks by $120 million.

Expand that expense to a large county of 100,000 households, and the lost economic activity is $240 million.

Expand that expense to a small state of 1 million households (2.5 million residents), and the lost economic activity is $2.4 billion.

Expand that expense to a state with 5 million households (approximately 12 million residents) and the economic cost is $12 billion in lost economic activity unrelated to the expense of maintaining the status-quo on electricity use.   This state loses $12 billion in purchases of goods and services, just to retain current energy use.

These examples only touch on household expenses.  The community, county and state business expenses for offices, supermarkets, stores, etc. are in addition to the households quoted.

Meanwhile the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the community, county and state, remains static because the GDP is calculated on the total value of goods and services generated in dollar terms.  The appearance of a static GDP is artificial.  In real Main Street terms, $12 billion in economic activity is lost, but the price or increased value of electricity hides the drop created by the absence of goods and services purchased.

Fewer goods and services are purchased and consumed.  However, statistically the inflated price of electricity gives the illusion of a status quo economy.

Now expand that perspective to a national level and you can see our current economic condition.

All of this is being done under the justification of “climate change.”

Previously I would have said this level of economic impact in Europe would lead to a total revolt against the government.  However, with the backdrop of the recent COVID lockdowns and government control mechanisms in mind, and looking at the citizen compliance that took place in response to those government mandates, it is now more likely the citizens in Europe will simply bow to the energy control mechanisms of the governing authority.

It’s almost as if the COVID compliance effort was the test…