Wednesday, August 16, 2023
New Hampshire Poll – Trump Dominates, DeSantis Slips to Single Digits Behind Chris Christie
Donald Trump continues to dominate the field in New Hampshire, with the competition for first loser position taking shape. At this point, none of the other GOP candidates are in a position to win any delegates, and the second highest polling lane is Undecided with 13%.
Undecided passed by I Don’t Know shortly before the Iowa fair. Apparently, putting sticks in eggs as a skill exhibited by the Florida governor was not enough to convince the Live Free or Die people of his leadership. It seems Chris Christie, who did not need the optics of being surrounded by multiple food stalls, benefited the most since the last poll within New Hampshire. [DATA HERE]
Together with the 8% egg handler, Mike “I don’t care” Pence seems to have lost the most support in New Hampshire, dropping to 1%, and will now put all his efforts into Iowa. Randhawa and Ramaswamy are holding steady at 4% and 3% respectively. Lisa Murkowski’s BFF is smiling big with 6% hoping to catch the meatball.
New Hampshire – […] Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie surpassed DeSantis for second-place in the Republican field: 9% of voters support his 2024 bid, while 8% support DeSantis.
“DeSantis has been the alternative to Trump in Emerson polling this presidential cycle. This is the first time we have seen DeSantis drop out of second place in our polling, and fall back into the pack of candidates,” Kimball said. (link)
Tucker Carlson Interviews Robert Kennedy Jr
Using the X platform, formerly called Twitter, Tucker Carlson interviews Robert Kennedy Jr about his campaign, U.S. foreign policy, Ukraine, Russia, NATO, Bio-Labs and who killed his uncle. {Direct Rumble Link}
CandidateGPT
With unlimited access to Republican talking points,
he can repeat exactly what you want to hear!
posted by Dianny at SweetMercifulZeus
It surprises me that so many Republican voters are taken in by Vivek Ramaswamy.
When I first paid him any mind, I thought he was a slippery fraud.
Vivek is a bit like Kamala Harris. He is a vapid, opportunistic phony with zero principles and no political instincts who will say anything to boost his public profile.
Vivek is such a phony that he will burp out his support or opposition to any particular issue depending entirely on the prevailing attitude among Republican voters at any given moment.
That's why he went from blaming Donald Trump for the January 6 riot to blaming online censorship.
It's as if some artificial intelligence wonk created a humanoid version of ChatGPT. Just load him full of Republican talking points and watch them dribble out of AI Vivek's mouth.
That might explain why Vivek's campaign talking points appear to be a mishmash of phrases cribbed from other Republican and populist politicians.
And because these policy ideas are artificially generated rather than the result of thoughtful consideration, VivekGPT often says things that are inexplicably insane.
In a lengthy post on X (AKA Twitter) last Friday, VivekGPT wrote:
We will further deter China from annexing Taiwan by shifting from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity: we will defend until 2029 but not afterward, at which point we will have full semiconductor independence from Taiwan, significantly reduced economic independence on China, stronger relationships with India, Japan, and South Korea, and stronger U.S. homeland defense capabilities to protect against cyber, super-EMP, and nuclear attacks. In the meantime, we will have absolutely *zero* tolerance for any breaches of our homeland or aggression in the Western Hemisphere, including Chinese spy balloons, Chinese spy bases in Cuba, intentional fentanyl poisoning, biological lab leaks, illegal border crossings, or any other encroachments of the U.S. homeland — and will make adversaries pay full-on hell if they do.
Was VivekGPT created by a Chinese artificial intelligence firm?
I'll simple it up for you:
VivekGPT is suggesting that the US will only deter China from annexing Taiwan until the United States no longer needs Taiwan's supply of semiconductors. Once we achieve "full semiconductor independence," Taiwan is shit out of luck.
The AI-generated text following the phrase, "In the meantime," is just a litany of hot-button terms designed to appeal to Republican voters, hence the inclusion of spy balloons, illegals, fentanyl, and lab leaks.
Unsurprisingly, the machine-powered statement left some scratching their heads.
Yesterday, the Washington Examiner reported that Vivek was asked about his tweet (X-crete? What the hell do we call them now?!) during an interview with Hugh Hewitt.
Rather than backtrack, VivekGPT defended his position to leave Taiwan swinging in the wind once the US no longer needed its semiconductors.
When Hewitt tried to press the AI candidate on his loony Taiwan policy, VivekGPT cut the interview short.
A campaign aide later told the New York Post that the interview wasn't cut short because VivekGPT could find the appropriate data online to formulate a proper response but because the campaign only thought he was appearing on Hewitt's program for 20 to 30 minutes.
The funniest part of the interview with Hewitt was when VivekGPT said this:
“Let’s just call a spade a spade: I didn’t know much of this six months ago."
Really?!
Who would have guessed?
When I saw that, I was suddenly reminded of that PBS interview Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did in 2018 when she was prattling on about the Palestinians, and when she was pressed, admitted, "I'm not the expert on geopolitics on this issue."
I'm sure VivekGPT will run a system update to clean out any bugs that prompt him to say things Republican voters don't like.
By tomorrow, he'll be back to regurgitating all the hot-button issues that the Republican base wants to hear while holding another press conference outside of whichever courthouse Donald Trump is getting arraigned.
I don't know.
Maybe it's because I'm naturally suspicious, but I don't trust a word Vivek Ramaswamy says.
It certainly doesn't help that the people who seem the most enamored with the guy are Trump's most loyal and devoted followers. That alone is enough to get my spider sense tingling.
VivekGPT has qualified for next Wednesday's debate on Fox. I'll be interested to see how an AI-generated candidate does against his human counterparts.
Merrick Garland Reminds Us Regularly Why He’s Never Deserved to Sit on the Supreme Court
On Friday Attorney General Merrick Garland once again reminded the country why he has never deserved to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS).
With evidence mounting of Joe Biden’s role in his family’s foreign business ventures, Garland announced the launch of a special counsel investigation into Hunter Biden for purported criminal activity. According to the Biden-appointed attorney general, the investigation will be led by David Weiss, the same U.S. attorney who concocted the now-derailed sweetheart plea agreement granting Hunter — and by default, Joe — immunity from future federal charges.
Unsurprisingly, Garland did not take any questions from reporters following the announcement.
While legacy media will undoubtedly claim Weiss’s appointment is “proof” America doesn’t have a two-tiered justice system, Garland’s launch of a special counsel investigation confirms exactly that. Special counsels aren’t immune from congressional oversight. But don’t be surprised if and when Weiss uses the investigation to stonewall House Republicans’ oversight efforts by trotting out the infamous “I can’t comment on ongoing investigations” line.
The special counsel isn’t just designed to investigate the Bidens; it’s to protect them from future Republican-led inquiries.
Egregious as it is, Friday’s maneuver is hardly the only instance in which Garland has taken overly politicized actions to benefit Democrats. The Biden appointee has regularly abused his powers to protect his political allies and target any American who stands in the way of the left’s authoritarian agenda.
Keep in mind that it was Garland who instructed the FBI to target parents at school board meetings under the false premise they were domestic terrorists. It was also his DOJ that recently attempted to imprison Mark Houck, a Christian father and husband arrested by the FBI, for protecting his son from an angry abortion activist.
And who could forget how Garland and the DOJ stood by and did nothing when left-wing anarchists showed up at the homes of Republican-appointed SCOTUS justices to harass and intimidate them into upholding Roe v. Wade? Or the agency’s similar inaction when leftist criminals were firebombing crisis pregnancy centers after the court’s draft majority decision in Dobbs got leaked?
After all, why charge violent street communists when you can just indict your boss’s leading political rival ahead of a major election (twice)?
Garland’s abuse of federal law enforcement not only exemplifies why he should be impeached; it demonstrates why he has never deserved to sit alongside honorable justices like Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. While figures such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell deserve credit for keeping Garland off the highest judicial body in the nation, they deserve equal scorn for suggesting this man should be anywhere near federal office.
Unlike Thomas or Samuel Alito, Garland isn’t interested in interpreting the Constitution as written or ensuring it is applied equally among the American people. Rather, he views the law as a weapon that can be molded and manipulated to advance Marxism throughout the U.S. legal system.
If his 2016 SCOTUS nomination had been successful, there’s no reason to believe Garland’s jurisprudence on the high court would be any different than the judicial activism displayed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. His stint as attorney general proves he’s more interested in weaponizing the law than interpreting it and shows the country why he should never be allowed to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.
How Should Republicans Respond to Fulton County? Indict The Left
When politicians are tempted to prosecute their enemies for political reasons, they must fear the same thing happening to them.
There are 27 Republican attorneys general in the U.S., compared to 23 Democrats. But you’d hardly know it these days. Today, all the celebrity prosecutors are Democrats. The left has an entire caste of politicians who make their careers by loudly hunting down supposed “wrongdoers,” using whatever excuses they can manufacture.
This cabal of prosecutors has existed for a while. In New York, for instance, the attorney general’s office has spent years neutering the National Rifle Association with a legal offensive meant to shut it down or at least entirely disable it as a national political force — an offensive that has mostly succeeded.
But the Democrat effort to criminalize their political enemies has reached its climax in 2023. Republicans have sat and watched as four separate indictments have come down from three separate prosecutors, all with the same purpose: imprisoning Donald Trump and as many of his political allies as they can get away with. Monday’s indictment out of Fulton County, Georgia, is the most extreme yet, seeking to ensnare not just Trump but 18 of his associates for the “crime” of contesting the 2020 election through the courts and legislative process.
The goal of all these indictments is simple: rig the 2024 election in the court system before a single ballot can even be cast, and criminalize the MAGA political movement Trump has built.
As our founders knew, and as Ben Franklin famously warned, maintaining a republic is not easy. The temptation is always there for tyrants to abuse their powers to nullify elections and make their hold on power permanent. One of the crucial checks on that abuse of power is that when there is overreach, other branches of government can push back. We understand this intuitively at the federal level. A president who grows too ambitious can be checked by Congress or by the courts.
But that is not the only balancing force in the American system. There is another: When politicians are tempted to prosecute their political enemies, for political reasons, they must fear the same thing happening to them.
Right now, the left does not have that fear, because conservatives have sat idle, refusing to act. That must change.
Of the four indictments brought against Trump, three are completely legally unprecedented in nature. Jack Smith’s J6 indictment and the new Fulton County case are both attempts to criminalize previously completely legal efforts to contest disputed elections through the courts and legislative bodies. Alvin Bragg’s case in New York, meanwhile, is a surreal effort to prosecute Trump for “covering up” a federal crime he has never even been charged with.
For the sake of rigging an election and imprisoning its enemies, the left got creative. For the sake of defending our system of government from this outlandish attack, we may have to get creative too. I offer the following examples as a starting point, but by no means an endpoint.
Hunter Biden
If Trump can be harassed everywhere from Fulton County to the Financial District, why can’t any state prosecutors take aim at Hunter Biden, whose lifetime of sordid criminal behavior has been released for the entire planet to see?
Biden has written in his memoir about a four-day crack bender he went on in Nashville in October 2016, part of a “crack-fueled, cross-country odyssey.” His infamous laptop, meanwhile, has damning proof of Biden buying tens of thousands of dollars worth of prostitute services from Florida-based madam Ekaterina Moreva. What can Florida do in response to that? I don’t know the answer, but I know this: If Democrats discovered a Trump family member had sent thousands to a madam in one of their states, the answer would not be “nothing.”
James Biden
Joe Biden’s brother has been at the heart of a long-running federal investigation into various health care ventures he was part of, in which James flagrantly trafficked in his brother’s name to attract investment that otherwise never would have happened. James then allegedly used these companies as a personal piggy bank. Today, thanks to the Hunter Biden whistleblowers, we can guess the real reason no federal charges have been forthcoming: James Biden is being politically protected. Oh well. Since Biden’s companies have operated in states like Florida and Kentucky, it’s time for state-level officials to get in on the action.
Alejandro Mayorkas
The calamity along the U.S. border has long ceased to be defensible as simply an overmatched Border Patrol grappling with a flood of humanity. It is a calculated dereliction of duty to enable an ongoing invasion of the United States. Congress should of course impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas for his conduct, but there’s another option: indict him for abetting human trafficking.
Black Lives Matter
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is the most glaring charity scam in America. BLM took in $90 million in donations in its first year of operations, riding high on the link between its name and the chant shouted by George Floyd rioters.
The charity, from the beginning, was a scam. It spent $6 million on a luxury home in the Los Angeles area, justifying the purchase by saying it could be used by black social media influencers (seriously) or serve as a “safe house” for people receiving “death threats” (seriously). In reality, the house was enjoyed by founder Patrisse Cullors for her personal use, while being monitored by her brother, who was on BLM’s payroll.
The above is all we need to call it a criminal scam. Buying an entire luxury house with dollars donated to fight racism? AG offices exist to prosecute this sort of thing. BLM got donations from every state in the country and quite possibly nearly every county. So it’s time Republican AGs acted accordingly. The people of their states were defrauded by BLM. Investigate and indict them.
Southern Poverty Law Center
For decades, the Southern Poverty Law Center has collected revenues well in excess of its spending. In 2022, it collected $140 million and spent just $110 million, for a surplus of nearly $30 million. It has amassed a war chest of more than $700 million. The SPLC’s lavish headquarters has been nicknamed the Poverty Palace. Even other, more principled liberals find the group completely loathsome; in 1996, one of them called SPLC founder Morris Dees “a fraud and a conman.” In a 2019 piece, former staffer Bob Moser said the group was “ripping” off donors and was essentially a “con.”
Well, the SPLC is headquartered in Mobile, Alabama. So, I ask, where is the war room in the Alabama AG’s office investigating the SPLC the way New York investigates the NRA?
Literally Any Democrat, for Anything
But really, giving specific names is beside the point. The cases against Trump and his associates aren’t the product of a reasoned criminal inquiry. They are the product of years of work that started from the premise of “investigate Trump for literally anything, and bring whatever charges you can come up with, even if they’re invented.”
That premise can be equally applied to any Democrat official, and for the time being, it should be. Given how many lawmakers fudge their federal taxes (or don’t pay them at all), what are the odds they’re paying their state taxes properly? What are the odds that congressmen representing deep-blue cities in red states are perfectly clean in all their dealings? That’s a good place to start. Send out subpoenas, demand records, fish constantly for anything remotely questionable.
“Investigate first, define the crimes later” should be the order of the day. And for even the most minor of offenses, the rule should be: no charity, no goodwill, no mercy. After all, it’s what Democrats have practiced the past seven years.