The Not So Great Debate

After Thursday, no matter what Democrats say or how hard they cheat, the case for change—the need to change who is in the White House—will be undeniable.

by Steve Gruber for American Greatness

This Thursday, at 9 p.m. Eastern, CNN will air a live special about elder abuse. The 90-minute broadcast will feature an 81-year-old man who does not know who or where he is. His guests will include his wife, who is not a physician but calls herself a doctor anyway and whom the man in question has called his sister, and a company of aides, yes-men, and armed guards. On the other side of the stage will stand President Trump, ready to debate Joe Biden. 

The time will test Biden’s ability to stand and speak at length, in spite of the friendliest questions from the enemies of Donald Trump. The time will test more than the constitution of Biden, because the test before us concerns the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

About this issue, regarding presidential succession and disability, there is nothing to debate.

Either we acknowledge the obvious—that Biden should not be onstage, that his presence endangers the presidency, that he is unfit to serve because he is unable to serve—or we resign ourselves to the fact that we do not have a president.

Let us also resolve that whatever happens on Thursday, and let there be no doubt about what the media will say immediately after the debate, that Biden won, the following is true: that a man who ran for president by running away and hiding in his basement, wants to remain in hiding; that seniority is no defense against an endless supply of “senior moments”; that Biden’s candidacy would be impossible without a compliant media; that CNN is complicit in a fraud against the American people.

And yes, let us resolve that Biden will call Trump a felon and a fascist.

Anything more than this is too much for Biden to remember. Anything, in general, is too much for Biden. Anything Trump does to press this point, so long as he speaks better and more authoritatively than Biden, is a win.

Let Biden ramble. Let him lie. Let him say he reveres the presidency too much to have Trump ruin it. These are the “known knowns” of Biden’s pitch: the predictable phrases of a man without a plan, of a candidate with nothing to say, whose campaign is both an insult and an embarrassment.

We also know what the moderators will ask President Trump. Regarding a presidential pardon, Trump should promise one. Trump should promise to pardon Hunter Biden. Trump should dismiss any questions concerning his own trials, except to say the criminalization of politics is wrong.

Biden is too intemperate to agree with Trump. Biden is also too extreme to say moderation among prosecutors is a virtue, that we need to put an end to lawfare and restore equal justice under law.

The moderators are themselves immoderate, because they are journalists in name only. Unless, of course, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper are closet conservatives who plan to vote for Trump. Unless the two realize how little trust they enjoy, or why voters distrust the media, Thursday night will be another loss for the profession of journalism and professionalism among journalists.

Maybe Trump will speak to this issue, because the credibility gap is real. Neither Biden nor CNN has any credibility. Biden may not know this. He does not seem to know much of anything. He will, however, have two chances to get a clue.

Because the debate will pause for two commercial breaks, the possibility exists—the probability is low—that Biden will realize how bad he sounds and how lost he looks. Because self-awareness is rare among politicians, and all but extinct among Democrats, do not expect Biden to have a moment of clarity.

Better to expect more of the same, which is to say nothing of substance from Biden. Do expect Biden to say the election of President Trump would mean the end of all future elections, that Trump is an “existential threat”—an “imminent threat”—to our democracy.

Expect Biden to cite January 6. Expect him to compare trespassing to terrorism, grouping the “QAnon Shaman” alongside the likes of Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers.

For Biden to say January 6 is as evil as 9/11 or as infamous as Pearl Harbor says everything we need to know about him. For Biden to speak of insurrectionists, and then take a knee in honor of BLM extremists, is to provide aid and comfort to the enemy. For Biden to speak of the evils of extremism, and then have the Department of Justice prosecute his enemies, is the ultimate act of extremism. Trump knows this too.

If Trump keeps his cool and maintains his sense of humor, he wins. If Trump is thorough in his answers and decisive in how he answers each question, he wins by a lot. If Trump shows how petty and partisan the debate is, if he shows how inconsequential and irrelevant Biden is, Trump wins in November.

After Thursday, no matter what Democrats say or how hard they cheat, the case for change—the need to change who is in the White House—will be undeniable.

Biden’s campaign ends tonight. 

X22, On the Fringe, and more- June 27 (Enjoy the show)

 

Trump-Biden Drinking Game

posted by Derek Hunter at Townhall 

I realize the first debate isn’t until Thursday, and I do have a Thursday Townhall column, so I could have saved this until then. However, if I had, this might have required those interested in playing to have to scramble to obtain the absolutely crushing amount of booze that you’d run risk of your local liquor store running out or thinking you’re a Kennedy. Best to give everyone a chance to plan; to give the boss a heads up that you may be late Friday morning or in the hospital having your stomach pumped. 

Since it’s best to avoid the latter (if you’re late, that’s on you), I’d suggest you just take a sip each time one of these things happens. What you’re drinking will determine just how much you regret watching, but the odds are pretty high you’ll regret watching no matter what. Watching Joe Biden hopped up on some secret cocktail of speed and Adderall so powerful that it would put someone with the tolerance of his son Hunter on his ass is going to be both frustrating and amazing. 

But don’t expect it to be mentioned by anyone except maybe Donald Trump. If he does, take a sip. If Jake Tapper or Dana Bash bring it up, do a shot. But if they bring it up in the context of how Trump has joked about it, do a whole shot. If they bring up Trump joking about it but it’s clear they didn’t get the joke, do a second shot. If Biden admits that he’s wasted and finally cries out for help to stop the elder abuse being perpetrated against him by Jill and his White House handlers, cheers to him for finally breaking free of his captors and take a swig out of the bottle.

When (and let’s be honest, he’s going to do it) Biden tries to take credit for “creating 15 million jobs,” do a shot. When Trump points out that the vast major of those “jobs” were positions returning after the COVID lockdowns were lifts, take a sip. If that fact is brought up by either Tapper or Bash first, don’t drink anything…you’re either suffering from alcohol poisoning already or you’ve just witnessed history and will want to remember where you were when a CNN employee fact-checked a Democrat in real time. 

Same goes for if Joe is corrected when he repeats his lie about inflation or gas prices being lower than when he took office; and chug for 3 seconds if anyone informs the public that Biden drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to get prices down, endangering our national security in an attempt to win reelection. 

If Trump brings up Hunter first, do a shot. If Joe does, then Trump says something like his brother suffered from addiction and he’d never attack someone for getting clean, the criticism is about corruption, don’t drink at all because you might have just witnessed a turning point in the election. 

If Biden mentions Russia, do yourself a favor and don’t drink anything. He’ll likely mention Russia a lot, and claim Trump is somehow a tool of Putin because he thinks ending the war in Ukraine is a good idea. But do a shot if Trump points out that Democrats are absolutely in favor of an immediate ceasefire and negotiations in Israel, where Jews are defending themselves from a very recent terrorist attack, while calling the concept of even broaching the subject of a negotiated ceasefire in Ukraine an affront to democracy without explaining how that is. Don’t, however, drink enough to try to make sense out of this, otherwise you will die. Anti-Semitism never makes sense, but it is alive and well on the left.

Finally, just drink a toast to the hope that Donald Trump wins the debate in the eyes of the public, but also that Joe Biden does not have another “senior moment” or complete seizure/meltdown. If he does, there is plenty of time for Democrats to replace him. If he doesn’t, we still get to run against an incompetent, unpopular, senile, arrogant jackass the American people view as being damaging to the country. If they replace him with Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom, we lose the “senile” part. I’d rather have all of that ammunition.

There are plenty of other things you could drink on for Thursday’s debate, but these will be enough to get you wasted. If you want one more, finish the bottle if Joe gives the American people his “word as a Biden.” Then do a shot and pray to God the public has seen enough to not fall for that crap again.

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5 Questions Biden Should Be Asked If The Debate Is Fair

CNN’s long history of anti-Trump bias will undoubtedly permeate the moderators’ line of questioning in favor of President Joe Biden.

posted by Brianna Lyman at The Federalist

CNN’s Jake Tapper compared former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, and Dana Bash’s ex-husband signed onto the infamous letter that dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election. Yet both of these so-called journalists are supposed to moderate a fair presidential debate this Thursday.

CNN’s long history of anti-Trump bias will undoubtedly permeate the moderators’ line of questioning in favor of President Joe Biden, but here are five questions the moderators would ask Biden if they wanted to host a truly fair debate.

1) “When you took office, inflation was 1.4 percent. Under your leadership, inflation hit 9 percent. Why do you blame Trump for that?”

Biden has consistently lied about his record on inflation, telling Yahoo Finance in May that inflation was “at 9 percent” when he entered office. Inflation was actually at 1.4 percent when he took office and did not reach 9.1 percent until 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

2) “What would you do differently in the next four years to bring down inflation that you could not have done these past four years?”

These past four years, Biden has done nothing but spend, spend, spend. Under Biden, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package in 2021, with a focus on repairing roads and bridges. Notably, the Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed earlier this year after a boat struck one of the supporting columns, killing six members of the crew that were working on the bridge at the time of the collapse.

Meanwhile, the Rapidan Dam in Minnesota is in “imminent failure condition” after severe flooding.

Biden also signed the roughly $750 billion “Inflation Reduction Act” which was originally touted to, well, reduce inflation. Biden later admitted the goal of the legislation was to promote his climate change policies.

3) “For years you have said you did all you could to secure the border. During the last few weeks, you have taken executive action to implement policies related to illegal immigration. What changed in four years and why did you wait?”

Biden repeatedly claimed he was unsure whether he “has the power all by himself without legislation” to shut down the southern border, even claiming doing so could possibly draw rebuke from the high court. Notably, Biden did not care what the Supreme Court had to say when he ignored its ruling on his bailout for student loan borrowers.

Biden has since changed tune, taking executive action to suspend the “entry of noncitizens who cross the Southern border into the United States unlawfully.” But as my colleague John Daniel Davidson notes, the “order itself belies the fact that it’s pure window dressing that won’t actually reduce illegal immigration.”

4) “The New York Times and other outlets have criticized you for avoiding interviews and speaking to the press. You have the lowest rate of interaction with the media than both of your predecessors. What’s your response?”

The New York Times called it “troubling” that Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.” Last year, the Times and other outlets noted that Biden had held the fewest number of news conferences since former President Ronald Reagan. That’s after the Biden administration claimed his presidency would be marked by “truth and transparency.”

5) “President Biden, you have continually said, ‘No one is above the law,’ and that legal decisions, such as Trump’s conviction, must be respected. Where then do you get the authority to ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling when it comes to student loans?” 

After the former No. 3 in Biden’s Department of Justice helped secure a show trial conviction of Trump, overseen by a Biden donor in a Manhattan court, Biden said the ruling “reaffirmed” that “no one is above the law,” and that the system of justice “should be respected.”

Yet Biden flouted the Supreme Court after it stopped his plan to force taxpayers to foot the bill for unpaid student loans.

“Early in my term, I announced a major plan to provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt,” Biden said. “My MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.”

Your Children Will Not Inherit America If the Democrats Win in November

posted by Brandon Morse at RedState 

It feels like every other day, a news story comes out that details how another illegal immigrant has assaulted and violated an American in some capacity. Police have been jumped, young girls sexually assaulted, and all the while, the Democrats are telling you in their Orwellian way that all the chaos and destruction you're seeing thanks to the policies of the Biden administration aren't indicative of absolute chaos at the border. 

As I wrote Wednesday, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas stood in front of reporters and said there was order at the border before being asked why people are still dying, including America's children, at the hands of illegal immigrants. 

(Mayorkas Embarrassed During Presser While Trying to Tell Everyone President Biden Secured the Border)

And it's America's children that I can't help but think about here, especially as I see the horrifying story of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was lured away from home, raped by two illegal immigrants, then strangled to death and her body dumped in a bayou. 

These people are criminals of the highest order, coming across our border illegally and committing some of the worst atrocities against citizens. 

And they're doing it under the "watch" of the Biden administration and the Democrats, all of whom seem to check out whenever these incidents are brought up. Worse, as Jim Thompson pointed out, some Democrats resort to Olympic-level mental gymnastics in order to spin the issue and place the blame on anyone else they can, including former President Donald Trump, with little to no explanation as to how it's his fault. 

These are the same Democrats who have policies surrounding these illegal immigrants that they should be released upon being captured instead of deported, fitting them with an ankle monitor that they take off and telling them to report to a court date they never show up for. They do all this only to turn back up later after having committed a crime that some families will never recover from. 

For his part, the empty suit known as Joe Biden can't even say the names of the people murdered by his immigration policies, and will even express regret for referring to the murderer of an American citizen as an "illegal." 

Back in March, I watched all that unfold and asked, "Who Is Joe Biden the President Of?"

Judging by his and his party's actions and words, I think I can say that it's not you. Biden and the Democrats are not politicians for the American people. Their intent is, as Obama once put it, "fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” 

"Fundamental transformation" means a complete remake. Given that we can safely conclude that the Biden administration and the Democrats have no interest in protecting the American people, including its children, we can also assume that this fundamental transformation does not involve anything beneficial to Americans. 

Your children are not going to have an America if this continues. If Biden and the Democrats are allowed to continue bringing the country down this path, our children's future in the greatest country that has ever been created will be gone. It will go to foreign interests, foreign people who do not share our values, corporate elitists who spit on our traditions and ignore common sense, and look at people as a tool to be controlled, not a human to be respected. 

This is a Godforsaken land where rights are a fun suggestion to ignore. This is a land where you're likely to face harsh punishment for doing the right thing and speaking the truth, while others may receive little to no punishment for their wrongdoing strictly because of their identity or ideological affiliation. 

This would not be America any longer. Your children and your children's children will live in a land that wears the mask of the United States but was fundamentally altered into something that resembles a dystopia. It will belong to criminals, activists, despots, and elitists, but it won't belong to Americans. 

Joe Biden and the Democrats have to go. Moreover, Republicans have to utilize their time wisely. They have to create laws that restrict the government, defund it, and even work toward setting the stage for the elimination of alphabet agencies. As they do this, they need to terminate laws and taxes against the people. 

That should be on the to-do list of every Republican we elect going forward. Otherwise, we won't stop the bleeding, and we'll lose the country. 

This isn't tinfoil talk. This isn't hyperbole. There is no America at the end of this path, and we need to get off it now. 

Stop the Ukrainian Meatgrinder? Victor Davis Hanson

 The only practicable way to avoid another near-one million dead and wounded would be a settlement, however unpopular.

Nearly eleven months ago, in August 2023, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials had estimated that some 500,000 Russians and Ukrainians had been killed, wounded, or missing in the then 18-month Ukrainian War.

Both Russia and Ukraine underreport their losses. Hundreds of thousands of additional casualties have followed in the 28 months of fighting.

In the West, the mere mention of a negotiated settlement is considered a dangerous appeasement of Russia’s flagrant aggression. In Russia, anything short of victory would be seen as synonymous with the collapse of the Putin regime.

Yet as the war nears two and a half years this summer, some facts are no longer much in dispute.

Controversy still arises over the circumstances of the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Russia charges that the West engineered the “Revolution of Dignity”—an effort to westernize the former Soviet republic, to expand the borders of Europe right to the doorstep of Russia, and eventually to fully arm Ukraine as a member of NATO.

Westerners counter that most Ukrainians wished to be part of Europe and independent from Russian bullying—and they had a perfect right to ask to join either NATO or the EU or both despite anticipated escalating tensions.

After the heroic Ukrainian defeat of the 2022 Russian bid to take Kyiv, there have been few significant territorial gains by either side.

Like the seesaw bloodbath on the Western Front of World War I, neither side has developed the momentum to force the other to negotiate or grant concessions.

As nuclear Russian threats against Europe mount, NATO is seeking to regain deterrence capabilities by boosting defense budgets, incorporating robust frontline nations Sweden and Finland, and uniting over shared concerns about Russian aggression.

Many in the U.S. cheer on the conflict as a necessary proxy war to check Russian aggression and bolster NATO’s resistance.

But unlike third-party wars during the Cold War, now the Western client, Ukraine, is fighting directly against the chief antagonist of European NATO members.

Arming a proxy in a war waged against the homeland of a nuclear adversary is a new and dangerous phenomenon.

The West counts on supplying Ukraine with more and better weapons than a richer, larger, and more populous Russia.

But Ukraine’s problem is not so much weapons as manpower. Nearly a fourth of Ukraine’s population has fled the country.

Ukraine may have suffered some 300,000 causalities. The average age of its soldiers is over 40 years. It already lacks sufficient forces to replay the failed 2023 counter-offensive. The Russian plan of attrition is to wear down and bleed out the Ukrainian people.

In a geostrategic sense, the new alignment of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea is starting to gain opportunistic support from illiberal Middle East regimes, Turkey, and the Islamic world in general.

The Biden administration’s respective approaches to the Ukraine and Gaza wars continue to be utterly incoherent.

It lectures our strongest ally Israel on the need for a ceasefire, proportionality, a coalition wartime cabinet, and the avoidance of collateral damage. The administration considers the terrorist Hamas almost a legitimate state.

However, Biden and the American diplomatic establishment urge Ukraine to keep fighting without negotiations. They urge Kyiv to seek critical disproportionality through superior weaponry, including hitting strategic targets inside Russia.

The U.S. has overlooked the cancellation of Ukrainian political parties and elections by the Zelensky administration. America does not seem to care about Ukrainian collateral damage to the borderlands. And it considers the Russian government a near-terrorist state.

No one in the West, at least prior to the Russian February 2022 invasion—neither the prior Obama, Trump, and current Biden administrations or the Ukrainian government itself—had considered it even possible to regain by force the Crimea and the Donbass absorbed by the Russian invasion of 2014.

Add up all these realities, and the only practicable way to avoid another near-one million dead and wounded would be a settlement, however unpopular.

It would entail the formalization of the 2014 Russian absorption of Crimea and Donbass.

Russia would then agree to withdraw all its forces to its pre-2022 borders. Ukraine would be fully armed but without NATO membership.

Both sides would agree to a demilitarized zone on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border. Russia would brag that it prevented its former province from joining NATO while finally institutionalizing its prior incorporation of the Donbass and Crimea.

Ukraine would be proud that, like heroic 1940 Finland, it miraculously stopped Russian aggression. It would remain far better armed than at any time in its history and soon enjoy a status similar to that of non-NATO Austria or Switzerland.

The deal would anger all parties. But it would make public what most concede privately—and stop the ongoing destruction of Ukraine and the further slaughter of an entire generation of Ukrainian and Russian youth.

Here's What Happens When Liberals Run the Military - Study Says It Is Now a 'Vast DEI Bureaucracy' Mess

Becky Noble reporting for RedState 

The great Rush Limbaugh said so many things that, no matter how much the left tried to twist them, were just universal truths. One of these defined the purpose of the American military or the military of any nation, "the purpose of armies is to kill people and break things." As Joe Biden has set the world on fire, this truth could not be more relevant now. But sadly, what has happened to the U.S. military is what always happens when Democrats run it: It becomes a massive social experiment. Now, there is proof that Biden and his flunkies have turned our brave fighting men and women into little more than Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) guinea pigs.

On Tuesday, a year-long study by the Arizona State University Center for American Institutions (CAI) confirmed what we have suspected all along, that the U.S. military, along with the Pentagon, has become a "vast DEI bureaucracy," wasting millions of dollars on DEI indoctrination of future and current military members over actual military readiness. The results of the study reveal that the military is producing a “race and sex-based scapegoating and stereotyping” environment that is impeding efficiency. 

Former Space Force Commander Matt Lohmeier put the situation bluntly, saying of the study: 

“It’s no surprise that young people are turning away from military service in record numbers. As this comprehensive report illuminates, DEI indoctrination has become a core component of military training that begins for officers even at the service academies. How can we be prepared to confront our adversaries if our warfighters aren’t laser-focused on the mission but instead are divided and distracted by ideology?”

DEI is big business in the federal government. Since Joe Biden took office, the Department of Defense budget for what it calls "DEI projects" has risen each year, from $68 million in fiscal year (FY) 2022, $86.5 million in FY 2023, to now $114.7 million in FY 2024. So, what are the tax dollars of the American people paying for? Here is just a sample: an Air Command "tool kit" for training. Part of that "training" includes holding "courageous conversations" about topics like white privilege and unexamined bias. Air Force personnel are also encouraged to “add personal pronouns to email signature blocks” because “it can influence whether someone will stay in their organization.” In the Navy, anti-extremism training views Black Lives Matter (BLM) not to be a political topic. But maybe one of the most disturbing details of the study talks about two high-level Marine Corps officers who argued against racial colorblindness because it "promoted racism and white supremacy."  

The U.S. Military also apparently lives by the old saying, "Get 'em while they are young." The indoctrination starts when America's future sailors, soldiers, airmen, and Marines enter their respective academies. DEI offices train and support race and gender "affinity groups." Students are also encouraged to spy on one another through "eyes and ears" programs and report any possible DEI violations. 

The CAI study was not the only document that reveals what is being taught at U.S. Military academies. A Freedom of Information Act request filed by Justice Watch, an advocacy group, shows the Air Force Academy also promoting critical race theory (CRT) through the "1619 Project." At the Navel Academy, the goal of the "peer education" program is to recruit midshipmen to have mandatory conversations with one another about DEI.

What effect is all of this DEI indoctrination having on America's fighting force? Nothing good. First and foremost, recruiting. In FY 2023, the Army, Navy, and Air Force all missed recruiting goals. The group consistently falling in recruiting numbers: white recruits — can't imagine why. The U.S. military started 2024 with the smallest fighting force since World War II. The CAI study lays out exactly what the primary problem of DEI indoctrination in the military is: How can you ask military personnel “to defend a nation that is an alleged cesspit of racism and discrimination”? You also don't have to have served in the military to know that DEI and anything related greatly impairs unit cohesion and teamwork. 

The U.S. military should only be merit-based for one reason. So that America's most skilled, talented, capable fighting men and women are ready at a moment's notice to defend a country they have been taught to love.  

Hillary Clinton Is So Confident Biden Will Win The Debate This Week That She’s Urging Voters Not To Watch

Clinton declared herself singularly knowledgeable about how the face-off between Biden and Trump should go.

Eddie Scarry reporting for The Federalist

After patting herself on the back at length for allegedly co-producing a musical about women voting — gag — Hillary Clinton finally got to the real reason she was once again disturbing America’s inner peace: She wanted to tell everyone how they don’t really need to watch the debate today between President Biden and the man she lost to eight years ago.

In a wince-inducing op-ed for The New York Times this week, Clinton declared herself singularly knowledgeable about how the face-off between Biden and former President Trump should go. “I am the only person to have debated both men (Mr. Trump in 2016 and, in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary race, Mr. Biden),” she wrote. “I know the excruciating pressure of walking onto that stage and that it is nearly impossible to focus on substance when Mr. Trump is involved.”

She went on to inadvertently humiliate herself, writing of Trump, “It’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are;” “He starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather;” and, “[e]xpectations for him are so low that if he doesn’t literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.” Again, this is the person Clinton lost to, against all odds, with all of the media, all of Hollywood, and all of Washington at her back. If Trump is really so incoherent, the op-ed should have been headlined, “He is the stupidest person on earth and he kicked my a–.”

In any event, the thrust of Clinton’s argument was that if voters pay attention to the “substance” of the debate, they will inevitably conclude that Biden won, even before the event has taken place. “This election is between a convicted criminal out for revenge and a president who delivers results for the American people,” she wrote. “No matter what happens in the debate, that’s an easy choice.”

This is another way of saying there’s no need to watch the debate; don’t.

Hmm… Now why might one of the most prominent names in Democrat politics tell voters to skip what will likely be just one of two times that the major party candidates for president directly face one another? It’s a mystery.

Kidding. It’s because Clinton herself performed terribly against Trump and there’s a significant risk that Biden is about to do the same — not just including but perhaps especially on substance.

Remove “convicted criminal” and “democracy” from the Democrat lexicon this campaign and they literally have no case for a second Biden term. Trump is a convicted criminal and his poll numbers have shown little to no change. He’s either beating Biden or they’re tied. As for “democracy,” what good is it to voters when one party is instigating political prosecutions of the other? What good is it to voters when they don’t feel safe in their cities and they can’t afford to buy the things they want? What good is it to voters when they’re told it’s their “patriotic duty” to fund a war in Eastern Europe to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars when they themselves watch their personal finances turn to ruin? That’s where Biden got them.

Democrats might still be able to squeeze some miles out of the abortion issue, but it’s a tough sell — Trump is adamant that he’s not interested in further national legislation for it and Republican leaders in Congress say the same.

As for the non-“substance,” contrary to what some Democrats might fret and what many Republicans delude themselves into believing, Biden has shown time and time again that he has it in him, whether through natural force or artificial injection, to rise to the occasion and scream out a high-energy performance in front of a national audience. He most recently did it during the State of the Union Address, and there’s no reason to believe he can’t do it again. There’s still a flicker of life in that old skin suit.

Ironically, it may be Biden who stands to benefit from lighting himself on fire at the debate. Then he won’t have to talk about his appalling first term.

Nate Silver's First Presidential Election Forecast Is Out, and Democrats Are Losing Their Minds

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

How things change. During the Obama era, election forecaster Nate Silver was a darling of the Democratic Party. He was the official numbers cruncher for The New York Times and would go on to create one of the two most popular polling aggregate sites.

Things started to shift in 2016, though. Despite still giving Hillary Clinton a 70+ percent chance to beat Donald Trump, Silver was accused of bias for not calling the election a wrap as some others had. We all know how that turned out, and since then, Silver has progressively fallen out of favor with the press and the left. Is it because he's become "right-wing?" No, he's still the same left-leaning guy he's always been, but contradicting the narrative, even through mere data aggregation, means he had to be cast out.

Silver is now out with his first 2024 presidential election forecast, and it gives Trump a shockingly high 66 percent chance to win the election as things stand.

When faced with such a dip, the right response is to be concerned and look for areas to change the dynamic. How did Democrats respond? By lashing out and personally attacking Silver.

The idea that Silver has been "wrong" and has, therefore, been discredited has been a common refrain. Is it true, though? The simple answer is that it's not. His final forecast of the 2020 election gave Joe Biden an 89 percent chance of winning. I understand skepticism of any forecasting as it's not an exact science and will inevitably be inaccurate to some degree, but it's hard to make the case that Silver has been off the deep end the last eight years. He seems to let his model do the talking, and that's happening once again. 

Silver was prepared for the criticism. In fact, he pre-emptively addressed it in his write-up about the latest forecast. 

Wouldn’t it be suspicious if, in the first presidential cycle where the Democrat has consistently trailed in polls since 2004, I suddenly started telling you that you should trust vibes rather than polls? Or if I chucked out my heretofore well-performing model for a new one that had Biden favored — or at least had the election as a toss-up? 

Yes, of course. It would be a sign that I’d become a hack. I’ve spent years telling people that, although polls are often wrong — indeed, inevitably wrong to some degree — it’s hard to predict the direction of polling error. Biden could easily overachieve his current polls — but it’s roughly as likely that he’ll underachieve them instead. It’s sort of a myth that Democrats outperformed their polls in 2022, but they certainly performed better than the conventional wisdom held. But Trump substantially outperformed his polls in 2016 and 2020. Going by the polls, perhaps along with some reasonable priors about things like the economy, is a lot better than going by the number of yard signs in your neighborhood or by what your friends think — or especially by what you hope will happen.

At the end of the day, no one knows what will happen with any certainty, but Silver takes a variety of data and feeds it into a model that doesn't take into account vibes and feelings. Had he massaged things to give Democrats the outcome they wanted, he would have indeed become a hack. Maybe every poll is systematically overestimating Trump and underestimating Biden, but for now, those are the numbers we have. In short, if you have to claim without evidence that almost every other data point is wrong, you're probably losing.