Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Trump’s Conundrum


In less than five months, the Republicans will hold their convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On August 19, the Democrats will convene in Chicago. In mid-September, early voting will begin in five states. The amount of campaign spending that will take place over the next eight months will be staggering, and thanks to the duplicitous machinations and malevolent lawfare directed at Donald Trump by the Democrat establishment, the Republican Party and the Trump campaign are looking at a potentially overwhelming financial disadvantage.

It is estimated that spending on the 2024 presidential election will significantly exceed the $5.7 billion spent on campaigning and political advertising in 2020 and nearly triple what was spent in 2016. As of December 31, 2023, $230 million had already been spent, which is more than twice the record set in the same period during the 2016 election cycle.

In the 2020 presidential election, the Biden campaign and Democrat-aligned groups spent $3.3 billion while the Trump campaign and Republican-aligned groups spent $2.4 billion.

Among the individual campaigns, Biden raised over $1 billion, while Trump raised $770 million. In the case of Joe Biden, it was the large individual donors, that accounted for 61% of contributions, while small individual donors accounted for 38%.

The Trump campaign fundraising was almost equally underwritten by large individual donors (51%) and small individual donors (49%) contributing $200.00 or less (a stunning and historically unmatched achievement.)

In 2024, the large individual donors, and their super and hybrid PACs, will probably account for at least 45% of all political contributions (43% in 2020). They will play an oversized role in deciding not only which candidate wins in November, but whether or not Joe Biden is the Democrat Party nominee. The small individual donors will account for perhaps 23% of all political donations, as they did in 2020.

Where do the two parties and their presumptive nominees stand in their campaign fundraising as of the end of January 2024?

The Biden campaign has raised $142 million to date and has $56 million on hand. The Trump campaign has raised $89 million and has $30 million on hand. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has raised $137 million with $24 million on hand; whereas the Republican National Committee (RNC) has raised $99 million and has just $9 million on hand.

When the cash on hand of the Biden campaign is combined with the DNC and other direct campaign-affiliated groups, the campaign has in excess of $154 million available. When Trump’s cash on hand is added to the RNC and other direct campaign-affiliated groups, the Trump campaign has $65 million.

While significant, these fundraising numbers pale by comparison to what will be spent in the entirety of the election cycle, assuming Trump and the Republicans can at least match their 2020 fundraising. Historically eighty plus percent of all political contributions occur between January and November of the election year.

2024 is shaping up to be the most extraordinary election in American history in light of the lawfare being waged against Trump. While the primary objective of the lawfare is to convict Trump of a felony, the intentional byproducts are to hamper Trump’s ability to campaign and to cripple the Republican Party’s and the Trump campaign’s fundraising.

In 2023, Trump spent more than $60 million of donor funds on legal expenses, with another $4.8 million in January of 2024. In another staggering statistic, he has spent over $132 million of donor funds on legal expenses since 2020. For 2024, considering the four trials he is still facing, Trump’s legal bills could exceed another $100+ million or a total of $232 million since 2020, all of which are separate from any judgements he may have to pay.

Recently, Lara Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and choice to become co-chair of the RNC, indicated that the party should pay Trump’s legal bills. On the other hand, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign insists that “absolutely none” of the RNC funds will be used to pay legal expenses but left open the question of whether the funds raised by the campaign and its affiliated PACs will be used to pay Trump’s legal bills.

This scenario has eventuated in an increasingly contentious issue that is currently roiling the Republican Party and its major donors. Should the Party and its donors pay for Donald Trump’s legal bills and what happens if Trump is convicted of a felony in one of these malicious trials? These issues are currently playing havoc with the flow of contributions to the Trump campaign, the RNC, the Congressional Campaign Committees, and Republican-affiliated super/hybrid PACs.

In light of the compressed election schedule, this conundrum needs to be resolved quickly and openly. Between February and November, the Trump campaign needs to raise upwards of $600 million and the RNC $250 million to match their 2020 receipts and expenditures.

To date the primary and largest Democrat-affiliated super/hybrid PAC, ActBlue, has collected twice the contributions of its Republican counterpart, WinRed -- $925 million vs. $431 million. However, between 80-90% of contributions to these PACs occurs during the election year. WinRed will have to raise $1.8 billion between February and November to match their 2020 receipts and expenditures.

There is an increasing consensus among conservatives and Republicans that if the Democrats win the White House and one or both Houses of Congress, this nation may well never recover.

Therefore, it is imperative that: 1) Trump quickly resolve the issue of who pays his legal bills and judgements; 2) the Trump/Republican army of small donors reprises the vital role they played in the 2016 and 2020 election; and 3) the bulk of large Republican donors acknowledge the dire situation facing the nation, cease their fixation with stopping Trump from winning the nomination as, after South Carolina, only Trump can determine whether or not he is the nominee, and begin to at least match their 2020 contributions to the individual campaigns, the Party, and Republican-affiliated PACs.

The Republican Party and the Trump campaign cannot afford to fall further behind the monolithic Biden/Democrat machine.

Recently a Biden-supporting super PAC, Future Forward, announced a record-setting $250 million ad blitz in eight battleground states. Another Democrat-supporting super PAC, Unite the Country, is planning to spend $40 million in the early spring focusing on Trump’s legal problems. Other Democrat-supporting super and hybrid PACs are also committed to heavily investing in advertising on all mediums and are actively promoting mail-in and early voting turnout as well as financing unfettered ballot harvesting.

Despite the vile distractions the Democrats are throwing at him, Trump, as the de facto leader of the Republican Party, must focus on uniting a still fractured Republican electorate, revitalizing political contributions, and winning in November.



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X22, And we Know, and more- February 28

 




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Good Riddance To Mitch McConnell: A List Of GOP Senate Chief’s Worst Blunders In Leadership BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE FEBRUARY 28, 2024 8 MIN READ

 https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/28/good-riddance-to-mitch-mcconnell-a-list-of-gop-senate-chiefs-worst-blunders-in-leadership/

Senate insiders tell me McConnell’s surprise announcement is a desperate move to retain his grip on power, as his support within the conference is cratering following his disastrous attempt to rubber stamp Biden’s open borders amnesty policy. Rather than face a formal vote of removal, McConnell announced his plan to resign the leadership post in November. Career Senate staff tell me momentum was building within the Senate GOP to formally oust McConnell as leader. “Even a growing number of moderates were angry at the chaos he was sowing in the conference,” one senior Senate GOP aide told me. An open rebellion against McConnell was in the works due to his “repeated sabotage of Republican priorities and border inaction,” the aide said. Others told me McConnell’s move was entirely cynical, and an attempt to cling to power for another 8 months. He’s just trying to get ahead of “a possible defenestration,” one aide said.

I'm not posting the entirety of the story... catch the rest at the link above.








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📢 The NCISVerse is expanding (again!) to it's most famous couple

 


Source: https://tvline.com/news/ncis-tony-ziva-spinoff-series-1235175346/

After more than 10 years, NCIS‘ #Tiva will rise once again.


TVLine has learned that Paramount+ has ordered to series a new offshoot of the long-running and well-watched NCIS franchise, one that will reunite Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo on-screen for the first time since October 2013, as the incredibly popular pairing of Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David.


Both Weatherly (who very recently made a cameo during NCIS‘ Ducky/David McCallum tribute episode) and de Pablo will star and serve as executive producers on the yet-to-be-titled Paramount+ series, which is slated to start production later this year, in Europe.

John McNamara (The Magicians), who wrote the premiere episode, will serve as showrunner and exec-produce alongside Weatherly, de Pablo, Laurie Lieser, Christina Strain and Shelley Meals.




As the NCIS faithful know, Ziva bid NCIS and Tony farewell at the start of Season 11, and was reported dead toward the end of Season 13; Tony left Gibbs’ team at the end of Season 13, to go raise his and “dearly departed” Ziva’s young daughter, Tali, whom he had just learned of. (Weatherly in turn proceeded to headline six seasons of the CBS series Bull.) Years later, in a most surprising climax to NCIS‘ Season 16 finale, Ziva revealed herself to be alive to Gibbs, eventually completing one final mission before she reunited with Tony and Tali in Paris (off-camera).


As the Paramount+ series opens, Tony and Ziva have been raising their daughter, together. But when Tony’s security company is attacked, they must go on the run across Europe, trying to figure out who is after them — and maybe even learn to trust each other again? — so that they can finally have their unconventional happily ever after.


Weatherly and de Pablo said in a joint statement, “We’ve been talking about this story for many years, and now with John McNamara at the helm, we are ready. The world of Tony and Ziva (and daughter Tali) promises to be an action-packed roller coaster fueled by love, danger, tears and laughter.


“We also want to acknowledge and thank the fans from around the world who supported the ‘Tiva’ movement for years,” the actors added. “To this day, they say hello in grocery stores and on the street to tell us how much these characters mean to them and ask what Tony and Ziva are up to now. This is for you!”


Said showrunner McNamara, “I’m incredibly excited to step into the NCIS universe with Cote and Michael and thrilled to explore it from a few new angles. Given that the franchise is such a global sensation, I think it’s phenomenal that CBS Studios and Paramount+ have given us the greenlight to shoot in Europe.


“As to the title of this series…,” the EP teased, “if I told you what it is, I’d be violating the Espionage Act.”

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Joe Biden Attempts to Alleviate Concerns About His Age on Late Night Talk Show - Does The Opposite

Note Trump refers to Mercedes? 
She's the wife of Matt Schlap sitting in the front row at CPAC !

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Trump Skeptics Have to Be Losing Their Minds Right Now


It's déjà vu for the anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party: Donald Trump is going to be the GOP nominee again. Some might be reaching for a crack cocaine pipe, a la Hunter Biden, to cope with this reality. As this phony war of a primary season ends, it's time to take stock and re-evaluate.  

There was never a shot that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis could have made the inroads necessary to beat the former president. Trump's grip on the GOP is too tight, partially because tens of millions still think the issues surrounding the 2020 election went unresolved. That feeling of being cheated during that election, whether legitimate or not, is an endless supply of fuel that motivates br voters in these hyper-partisan days. The average GOP voter doesn't hate DeSantis, but Trump is someone they can't move away from just yet. In South Carolina, Senator Tim Scott is the most popular politician in the state, though its voters opted overwhelmingly to give Trump another try for high office. And now, with Trump primed to sweep Super Tuesday, the Trump skeptics are reeling again. 

There are some arguments from this side that I can respect vis-a-vis Trump's legal baggage. The "he's not a conservative" argument is long dead. His past party registration should only elicit a shoulder shrug; Reagan was a Democrat. And businesspeople can, should, and do support both parties. I had some qualms about the legal issues facing the former president. Many resources are going to be diverted to pay these monstrous legal bills. Then again, there's not much we can do about it—the voters have spoken. 

If Trump is indicted, will that change how these voters think about the former president? Not really:


It is interesting how voters respond to the classified document scandals of both Biden and Trump. We've been told by Special Counsel Robert Hur, Democrats, and the liberal media that these are not the same cases and that Trump's alleged mishandling was worse than the current president's. Voters don't see it that way. 

Trump isn't going away because the br is sick of the Bush-Romney-McCain-Haley class of politicians. They don't want "principled" per se. They want results. Trump won the Republican nomination again despite being opposed to a core Republican tenet: the reform of our entitlement system. If more traditional conservatives are aghast, maybe they should have focused on winning. Their side picked two candidates, McCain and Romney, that got waxed by Democrats. Nikki Haley tried to retake the party this year and failed miserably. Many have taken the hint and dropped out. Haley remains ignorant that her time ran past a decade ago. 

Trump's personality turns people off, but things have deteriorated so severely that voters might be open to tolerating it and accepting responsibility for ushering a return of the hallmark bluster and colorful personality Trump embodied at 1600 Penn. If voters see results, they're willing to tolerate a lot. Former President Bill Clinton has credible allegations of rape against him but left office with an approval rating in the high-60s. Part of that is due to GOP overreach during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Still, Slick Willy oversaw a healthy economic boom, creating over 22 million jobs, and the average household income increased by almost $7,000. That's how someone accused multiple times of rape can get elected twice. Hell, not to get into the academics here, but given power dynamics regarding consent, it's clear that Lewinsky, a lowly intern at the time, couldn't truly consent when the president of the United States was asking stuff of her, which is rape. 

As it was in 2016, in 2024, GOP voters don't want a saint or someone who fits the Reagan conservative mold. Just win the election and get stuff done. Trump did that during his presidency; hopefully, he can do so again. White, wine-drinking, suburbanite women who love abortion can only do so much when every key voter bloc in the Democrat Party is depressed, thanks to Joe. 



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Majority Of Voters Recognize Democrat Lawfare Against Trump Is Political Election Interference



A majority of voters think Democrats are “engaged in lawfare” to knock former President Donald Trump out of the race, according to a new poll.

More than half of voters believe Democrats are “using the government and the legal system in biased ways to take out a political opponent,” according to a recent Harvard Caps/Harris poll.

When asked the question, “Do you think the democrats today are engaged in lawfare — a campaign using the government and the legal system in biased ways to take out a political opponent or do you think the prosecutions of Donald Trump are fair and unrelated to politics?” 58 percent agreed the prosecutions are lawfare, compared to 42 percent who said the indictments are fair. When pollsters flipped the order of the question, a majority (55 percent) still said Trump’s legal woes are a Democrat strategy to take out a political opponent, with 45 percent disagreeing.

When broken down by party lines, between 36 and 42 percent of Democrats agreed that Trump’s indictments constitute lawfare, as did roughly 8 in 10 Republicans. Independents were roughly split on the question.

A similar majority of voters also believe the multiple legal cases that have cost Trump extensive amounts of time and resources make it “impossible for him to be a viable candidate” for president, according to the poll.

Voters also were more inclined to think Trump will “shake” the country up for the better compared to those who believe he is a “danger to democracy,” 56 percent to 44 percent, respectively.

The poll was conducted by The Harris Poll and Harris X in collaboration with the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University among 2,022 respondents.

Trump was indicted in April by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over allegations that Trump paid hush money to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to cover up an affair he had years earlier.

The charges were levied despite the incident occurring more than five years prior, outside the statute of limitations, under a legal theory that even Vox’s Ian Millhiser called “dubious.”

The Biden administration then indicted Trump in June for allegedly mishandling classified documents — something Biden himself did but evaded charges after a special counsel concluded a jury would not likely find he possessed the “mental state of willfulness” to commit a crime. Notably, the Harvard-Harris poll found that 65 percent of voters think Biden “had classified and top secret materials in his house and his office from when he was a Senator and Vice president, and shared them with those writing his memoirs,” with 62 percent saying he deserves to be prosecuted if true.

Despite feigning ignorance about the DOJ’s 2022 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, emails show the White House apparently coordinated with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in advance.

American First Legal says the emails they obtained show the DOJ made a “special access request” “via the Biden White House” for the documents they accused Trump of retaining improperly. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) general counsel Gary Stern said via email that “the Justice Department, via the Biden White House, has made the [special access] request.”

America First Legal says the alleged coordination is concerning since “the special access statute authorizes special access requests to an incumbent president only when the records in question are needed for ‘the conduct of current business’ of the White House. Providing documents to the DOJ for purposes of a criminal investigation is not the ‘current business’ of the White House.”

Trump’s team has since alleged in court filings that the Biden administration worked with the National Archives and Record Administration to push for the probe.

The Biden administration again targeted the former president in August, with special counsel Jack Smith charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted Trump alongside 18 others in August for what she claims was an attempt to overturn the election results in Georgia. Willis’ credibility has come into question following bombshell allegations she hired her lover, Nathan Wade, to lead the investigation and used taxpayer money to go on lavish vacations together.

Trump was recently ordered to pay $355 million in a fifth case for allegedly inflating his net worth and the value of his properties. Judge Arthur Engoron infamously lowballed Mar-a-Lago’s worth to be as low as $18 million during the trial for the suit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned on nabbing Trump.

Engoron found Trump guilty despite no victims or losses reported in the case.



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Oh, So That's What Biden's Border Visit Is Really About

Katie Pavlich reporting for Townhall 

President Joe Biden will make a visit to Brownsville, Texas on Thursday, marking only his second trip to the border since becoming a career politician in the 1970s. 

For days the rumor mill in Washington D.C. has been spinning about Biden potentially signing an executive order to curb the unrelenting flow of illegal immigrants into the country, but according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre, that isn't happening before the trip. 

Instead, Biden will visit the border to lambast Republicans for refusing to pass a recent "border" bill -- the same bill that paid for illegal immigrant attorneys, allowed 5000 illegal immigrants per day into the country, would have never shut down the border and gave Biden the power to suspend border security measures included in the bill. 

Meanwhile, the Border Patrol Union is blasting Biden's trip as too little, too late. 



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Biden Claim of Possible Imminent Ceasefire Appears to Have Been Nonsense, and That's Concerning


Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

We reported on Joe Biden's claim about a possible ceasefire by next Monday. 

Biden Says He Expects Israel to Bow to Demands for a Ceasefire Within a Week

But as I noted in reporting on his Seth Meyer's interview, Biden was eating ice cream, and he appeared to not know what he was saying even as he said it. 

"Well, I hope by the beginning of the weekend," Biden said 

"I mean the end of the weekend. At least my national security advisor tells me that we're close."

So the media ran with that. Unfortunately, it's Joe Biden, so they should have known better. 

That's a big problem when you can't even trust if he knows what he's talking about from one minute to the next — when he can't get leaders' names right or even the year right.

When Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu was asked about it, he said he was "surprised" by what Biden said. That doesn't bode well for Biden's claim being hinged in any kind of reality.

Netanyahu further said in a statement later on Tuesday that he had been "leading a political campaign whose purpose is to curb the pressures intended to end the war before its time" and that the Harvard-Harris poll indicates that 82 percent of the American people support Israel. "This gives us two more strength to continue the campaign until the complete victory," he said. 

That sounds like it might be a shot at Biden's effort to pressure him. 

It turns out even Hamas and Qatar (who has been brokering talks) shot down Biden's claim about a potential temporary ceasefire. One Hamas leader, Ahmad Abdelhadi, said they weren't agreeing to any deal that didn't have a permanent ceasefire. The Qataris who have been brokering talks said that while they were optimistic, there hadn't been any breakthroughs. 

In other words, Biden seems to have had no idea what he is talking about. 

So the press asked NSC spokesperson John Kirby if he could explain what Biden was talking about. 

Kirby said he couldn't speak for why Netanyahu was surprised, ducking the question about why Biden said it. He also claimed that Biden was being kept up to speed on the issue. Yet it doesn't appear that Biden is "up to speed" when he gets something like that so wrong. 

Translation: Hey, he was just misleading everyone, no harm, no foul. It just happened to be on the eve of the Michigan primary with its substantial Muslim population. So you can take your pick: complete nonsense exaggeration because he's out of his mind and/or trying to convince voters to vote for him with the claim.

Either way, if we can't rely upon our alleged leader having some relation to reality — if other countries can't rely upon what our leader is saying — we are in deep doo.



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Did Ukraine's Top Spy Chief Just Destroy Biden's Narrative About Navalny's Death?

Leah Barkoukis reporting for TownhalVIP 

On Feb. 16, Russia announced the death of fierce Putin critic Alexei Navalny, 47, while he was in an arctic prison colony. 

The country’s prison service said he “felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness” and that resuscitation measures were unsuccessful.

Given Navalny was poisoned in 2020 with a military nerve agent, many suspected Putin was involved in his death.  

Without knowing more details, President Biden’s immediate response was just that. 

"We don't know exactly what happened, but there is no doubt that the death of Nalvany was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did," he said.  

"Russian authorities are going to tell their own story," Biden added. "But make no mistake. Make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny's death." 

Then came the sanctions. 


But this week, Ukrainian spy chief Kyrylo Budanov claimed Nalvany actually died of natural causes. 

“'I may disappoint you, but what we know is that he really died from a blood clot. And this is more or less confirmed,” Budanov, the head of the GUR military intelligence service, told reporters. “This was not taken from the Internet, but, unfortunately, a natural [death].”








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