2024

[G M]

I get the point of course, but sometimes a bad deal is better than a losing fight.

Who is losing? Not Florida.

[Crafty_Dog]

IMHO on a national level six weeks is a badly losing proposition.

[G M]

IMHO on a national level six weeks is a badly losing proposition.

There is no "national". At some point, that will sink in.

[Crafty_Dog]

Sure there is.  It is called "the Presidential Election".

[ccp]

https://www.axios.com/2023/04/16/desantis-trump-2024-tv-ads-fox-news

 

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/8th-senator-endorses-trump-for-2024-primary_5199458.html?utm_source=News&src_src=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2023-04-17-1&src_cmp=breaking-2023-04-17-1&utm_medium=email&est=imwqW%2B7OPnTxOv4pK1hN3nJmLMPfwdcn3h%2FuySPs1WumTZr0SUEAoEwVcX0i%2B8uvQsfF

[Crafty_Dog]

Do Any Other GOP Candidates See What Pompeo Sees?

On the menu today: Mike Pompeo, who wrote an autobiography and campaign book entitled Never Give an Inch, announced Friday he would not run for president. I guess he was willing to give more than an inch. But we shouldn’t be surprised, as one-third of self-identified Republicans didn’t know enough about Pompeo to have much of an opinion of him — even after he spent two years as President Trump’s director and then another two years as Trump’s secretary of State. Credit Pompeo for recognizing the reality that he just wasn’t well-known or popular enough to make a serious bid for the presidency. Longshot candidates whine that the media, both conservative and mainstream, don’t take them seriously enough. But it’s more than fair to ask if these candidates are taking the challenge before them seriously in the first place.

Mike Pompeo Could See Hard Reality. Will Any Other GOP Contenders Join Him?

If you want to win a major-party nomination for president, you must be a well-known figure. An extremely well-known figure. As Liz Mair observed, “Donald Trump entered the presidential race with 99.2 percent name recognition.”

You can rage against this rule, or you can accept it and attempt to reach that threshold, recognizing that near-universal name-recognition is rarely achieved quickly; it may well require the work of a lifetime.

Friday evening, Mike Pompeo announced that, “After much consideration and prayer,” he and his wife Susan had concluded, “that I will not present myself as a candidate to become president of the United States in the 2024 election.”

Mike Pompeo was the U.S. secretary of State for about two years, and before that, CIA director for two years. The rest of his resume glows. He graduated first in his class at West Point and retired from the U.S. Army at the rank of captain. He went on to get a J.D. from Harvard Law School, edited the Harvard Law Review — remember what a big deal that was in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign? — and then made his fortune when he co-founded Thayer Aerospace, a specialized aircraft machinery manufacturer, with some of his classmates from West Point. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in the district representing Wichita in the GOP wave of 2010 and served on the House Intelligence and Energy Committees. His recent autobiography, Never Give an Inch, debuted at number three on the New York Times bestseller list. (Pompeo’s PAC may have spent $42,000 on a bulk purchase of the book, but the Times bestseller list reportedly does not count bulk sales.)

And yet, as of a month ago, only two-thirds of Republicans felt like they knew enough about Mike Pompeo to know how they would feel if he were the GOP presidential nominee.

In mid March, CNN surveyed 1,045 respondents who identified as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, and asked them how they would feel if various figures were the 2024 GOP presidential nominee. The poll found that 33 percent didn’t know enough about Pompeo to know whether they would be enthusiastic, satisfied, dissatisfied, or upset if he were the Republican nominee. Just 8 percent said they would feel “enthusiastic” if Pompeo were the nominee, and 32 percent said they would be “satisfied.”

By comparison, only 1 percent of respondents said they didn’t know enough about Donald Trump to know how they would feel, 8 percent said the same about Mike Pence, and 15 percent said the same about Ron DeSantis. In an ominous sign for former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, a similar 33 percent of Republican respondents said they didn’t know how they would feel if Haley were the GOP nominee.

That CNN poll didn’t ask about Vivek Ramaswamy, and I am sure he and his campaign find that fact to be a great injustice — in fact, they may argue it is a sign that CNN fears Ramaswamy and doesn’t want its poll to reveal his overwhelming popularity. But it is difficult to believe that Ramaswamy, who has been in the public eye much less than Pompeo or Haley, would generate more impressive numbers than those two former Trump cabinet officials.

It is not mean, merely a statement of fact, to say that Mike Pompeo was at 1 percent in most national polls of the GOP primary, and topped out at 4 percent in Quinnipiac’s poll. Pompeo’s numbers were similar in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and basically every other early poll of any state. Nikki Haley is doing a little bit better, but rarely above four percent. Ramaswamy is at one percent in the surveys that remember to list him as an option.

I am sure Ramaswamy did not like it when Charlie wrote that he isn’t really running for president, and that, “He hasn’t really given up his job; he’s transitioned into another one. He’s not really thinking about what it means to be an American; he’s building a ginormous mailing list. He’s not really selling ‘a vision that I have personally developed’; he’s running as Donald Trump’s obsequious press secretary.”

But Charlie’s not wrong. You don’t go from being the founder of a biopharmaceutical company to being the Republican presidential nominee after a few years of being an anti-woke activist. Ramaswamy only became old enough to run for president two years ago.

The presidency is the heaviest of responsibilities. There is something a little insulting about this charade, this choice to believe that getting a good response from interviews on Fox News Channel means you’re ready to be commander in chief and the responsibility of writing condolence letters to servicemembers’ families after they have died carrying out your orders.

The political media and skeptics are not the bad guys for pointing out this reality. It’s not our job to indulge other people’s delusions of grandeur. Every four years, only two people become the nominees of the two major parties, and only one person wins the presidential election. Almost all presidential campaigns end in disappointing defeat. At least nine times out of ten, a presidential candidate isn’t as popular as he and his inner circle believe.

“Take me seriously,” the long-shot candidate demands. Okay, you first. You had better have a real and serious plan to raise tens of millions of dollars to build up that name recognition that you don’t have. Your debate performances had better be a lot more than just smiling and reciting the same old talking points we’ve heard a million times before. Your platform had better have some clear, appealing policy goals that are simultaneously bold and achievable. (It would be particularly refreshing if an aspiring president did not simply assume that upon taking office, overwhelming majorities in Congress would be eager to enact their proposals as is.) And you had better have the nerve to make a hard and fair critique of the frontrunners ahead of you, to their faces, on a debate stage. Nobody is going to rise to the nomination just by being a nice guy.

To win the nomination, it isn’t enough to be liked. You must be a primary voter’s first choice above a bunch of other options. As the eminent archeological professor Henry Jones Sr. said, “In this sort of race, there’s no silver medal for finishing second.” And it’s very hard to reach that threshold of support when people have no idea who you are, or have only the vaguest idea of who you are. Political figures are almost always more obscure than they think because they travel in circles where everyone recognizes them. They don’t remember all the people at the grocery store, airport, or restaurant who didn’t recognize them and didn’t want to shake their hand. Again, I cannot underline this enough: Only two-thirds of self-identified Republicans had any opinion about the previous secretary of State.

Yes, it would be nice, and probably better for the GOP and the country, if every candidate received a respectful hearing. The U.S. has probably missed out on some good presidents because they just weren’t charismatic enough, didn’t have a big enough fundraising network, or didn’t come from a state that is a natural platform for rising to the national stage.

But we never lived in that world, and we certainly aren’t in it in this cycle. President Trump is the 800-pound gorilla in the room, still enjoying 99 percent name recognition — God help that remaining 1 percent — and a majority or large plurality of support among self-identified Republicans in most polling. (This should not shock us, as most of the conservatives who are most opposed to Trump have largely left the party since 2016.) Donald Trump is extremely unlikely to be knocked out of frontrunner status by some little-known figure.

I don’t mean to pick on Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, but he appeared on Face the Nation yesterday, and the interview began like this:

MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who is attending a Republican gathering in Nashville. Governor, it’s good to have you here. I know you’ve said you are running for president. So I want to start there. What is the affirmative reason you want to be chief executive of the United States of America?

FMR. GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON: Because we need leadership that brings out the best of America and doesn’t appeal to our worst instincts. We need to have leadership that understands our responsibility across the globe, and that we’re not an isolationist party or country. And so whenever you look at the challenges we face from the economy, that we could be headed into a recession, to our border security and the fentanyl crisis that we face, to the lack of energy supply that’s so critical to our growth in our country. These are all issues that I think need to be solved. And my experience as Congress, as head of the DEA, involved in national-security issues, gives me the capability to address those and I’m excited about the opportunity to run.

It’s not a bad answer, but there’s nothing particularly surprising or head-turning about it. There are some vague allusions to Trump — leadership that “appeals to our worst instincts” and “we’re not an isolationist party or country.” But other than the reference to serving as head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, that answer could be given by any other Republican running. If you’re going to run for president only to say the same things that every other candidate is saying, why should Republican primary voters choose you over all the other options? And if you can’t answer that question . . . why are you running?

Mike Pompeo could see the handwriting on the wall. Will any other prospective Republican candidate?

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/chris-christie-on-florida-disney-feud-i-dont-think-ron-desantis-is-a-conservative/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=31205090

For me the obvious retort is that if Disney wants to be treated as a private business, it should not have State power.

[ccp]

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/19/desantis-dc-trump-endorsement-00092695

of course is a liberal dem at Politico so this cannot be trusted
-----

if Trump wins, we lose
 in my mind

the only hope is he could get more votes then a dem who is even more unpopular
I don't know how one could be more unpopular then Hillary and even then he won be a fraction of one second.

Biden still not announcing he will not run because they don't want Dems duking it out for his spot. Amazing how they all stick together like crazy glue (pun intended )

Let the Republicans tear each other up and let Trump come out on top
I would be tempted to stay home .   I can't stand him anymore. He WILL bring us down.

The crats could not be happier

[G M]

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/19/desantis-dc-trump-endorsement-00092695

of course is a liberal dem at Politico so this cannot be trusted
-----

if Trump wins, we lose
 in my mind

the only hope is he could get more votes then a dem who is even more unpopular
I don't know how one could be more unpopular then Hillary and even then he won be a fraction of one second.

Biden still not announcing he will not run because they don't want Dems duking it out for his spot. Amazing how they all stick together like crazy glue (pun intended )

Let the Republicans tear each other up and let Trump come out on top
I would be tempted to stay home .   I can't stand him anymore. He WILL bring us down.

The crats could not be happier

Don't worry, all future elections will be fortified for our protection.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/rfk-jr-enters-presidential-race-with-double-digit-support-from-biden-voters/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=31218282

[Crafty_Dog]

second

Trump Forgets His Own Record on Entitlement Reform

 
MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting the campaign of former president Donald Trump, has made clear in a series of ads that it views Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s past views on entitlement reform as a weakness heading into 2024. But Trump is equally vulnerable to that line of attack.

 

Trump’s 2020 budget proposal included cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. The proposal outlined an aim to spend $25 billion less on Social Security in the next decade and $845 billion less on Medicare over that same period of time. The proposal also would have allocated $1.2 trillion in a block-grant program to states for Medicaid, in an effort to spend $1.5 trillion less on that program over ten years.

 

Never Back Down, a pro-DeSantis PAC, debuted its own 30-second ad taking Trump to task for fighting fellow Republicans. The ad, “Fight Democrats, Not Republicans,” unearths Trump’s own comments on the issue of entitlements.

 

The ad, which is the group’s first TV spot, depicts DeSantis saying, “We’re not going to mess with Social Security,” while Trump previously told a reporter that “at some point” entitlements will be something to “look at.”

 

The Never Back Down ad came after MAGA Inc. launched a rather unique ad last week: a 30-second video of a man eating chocolate pudding with his fingers. The ad plays on a Daily Beast report from last month that claimed DeSantis once ate a pudding cup with three fingers in lieu of a spoon while traveling on a private plane in 2019.

 

But while the ad grabs viewers with its uncomfortable imagery, the spot ultimately does not concern DeSantis’s eating habits but rather is just the latest example of Trump’s team hitting DeSantis on entitlements.

 

“Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don’t belong. And we’re not just talking about pudding," a voice-over says. "DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements, like cutting Medicare, slashing Social Security, and even raising our retirement age."

 

“Tell Ron DeSantis to keep his pudding fingers off our money," the video adds. "Oh, and get this man a spoon!"


DeSantis voted for three nonbinding resolutions between 2013 and 2015 that called for raising the retirement age to 70 and reducing benefits for millions of earners. Trump’s attacks on DeSantis’s entitlement record resemble those leveled by Adam Putnam during the 2018 Florida gubernatorial primary — attacks that left-leaning Politifact classified as misleading given that DeSantis voted for non-binding budget resolutions that, even if adopted, would not have changed federal law and would not have therefore cut benefits for any Americans.

 

The governor also seemed to walk back his previous support for raising the retirement age as well as privatizing Social Security back in March. “We’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans,” he told Fox News. “I think that that’s pretty clear.”

 

The “Pudding Fingers” ad follows a 30-second ad that MAGA Inc. debuted late last month also attacking DeSantis’s record on entitlements.


Nonetheless, the pudding ad got people talking.

 

In a Sunday memo, the Trump PAC cited search-engine rankings as evidence the ad was a smash hit:

By Friday evening, the No. 1 search suggestion in Google for ‘Ron DeSantis’ was ‘pudding.’  As of Sunday afternoon, MAGA, Inc.’s tweet of the ad had reached 4.2 million people. Media outlets across the political spectrum have covered the ad, including: Bloomberg, Breitbart, The Hill, People Magazine, The Daily Caller, Rolling Stone, Newsmax, The Washington Examiner, Politico, The New York Post, CNN, and The Daily Mail.

 

CNN’s Jake Tapper called the ad ‘very memorable,’ and The Dispatch editor and Never-Trumper Jonah Goldberg admitted to Tapper that the ad was ‘kind of brilliant’ for its clear ability to ‘stick in people’s heads’ and ‘get enormous free media.' The ad was described as ‘buzzy’ in POLITICO Playbook and as ‘disgustingly good’ in New York magazine. The War Room’s Steve Bannon called it one of the ‘bolder ads’ that he’s ‘seen in recent years in politics.'

But Fox News host Neil Cavuto called the ad “childish” and “insulting.” Karl Rove flat out called the ad “stupid.” “Donald Trump is worried about Ron DeSantis,” Rove said. “Otherwise, why would he be out there now before DeSantis is even a candidate?"

 

NR’s Noah Rothman argues that neither the MAGA Inc. ad nor the Never Back Down spot leave a good taste in one's mouth: “We’re left to conclude that neither of the two most competitive Republican presidential aspirants have any intention of tackling America’s foremost debt drivers, and that is meant to be a comfort to America’s voters. It is not.”

 

Yet Trump followed up the ad with a post on Truth Social doubling down on the line of attack: “Social Security and Medicare, and Ron’s attack on both, have destroyed DeSanctimonious. His love affair with Jeb Bush and Karl Rove, certainly haven’t helped, but being a DISCIPLE of ‘Wheelchair over the Cliff’ Paul Ryan, has been a disaster. Ron has lost his supporters and his support, and MAGA refuses to Endorse disloyal people!”


While Trump has taken to personal attacks on DeSantis, whom he has pejoratively nicknamed “Ron DeSantimonious,” the Florida governor has underscored his time spent working rather than getting dragged into Trump’s war of words.

 

DeSantis, speaking in Ohio, said: "Politics is not entertainment, it’s not about building a brand on social media . . . It’s about delivering results." He also noted the Florida GOP's big victory in November and media coverage of Florida Democrats' demise. "That's what you call winning."

 

DeSantis, for his part, has also denied using his fingers to eat pudding during an interview with Fox News. And while pudding-gate was part of a larger Daily Beast story meant to draw attention to DeSantis’s lack of charisma, Politico reported that the Florida Republican bucked his “robot reputation” during a trip to New Hampshire last week when he headlined a sold-out state GOP dinner. At the dinner, DeSantis received multiple standing ovations and was “swarmed” for photos after his speech. He met with attendees for more than an hour, shaking hands and taking photos in an unplanned display of retail politicking.

 

Trump was not the only Republican lobbing attacks against DeSantis this week. Chris Christie, who is considering his own 2024 bid and is one of the more vocal Trump critics of the potential Republican field, shared criticism of the Florida governor over his handling of the ongoing battle between Disney and the Sunshine State.

 

“I don’t think Ron DeSantis is a conservative based on his actions towards Disney,” he said, adding that the job of government is to “stay out of the business of business.”

 

“Where are we headed here now? If you express disagreement in this country, the government is allowed to punish you? To me, that’s what I always thought liberals did,” Christie said.

 

He went on to say that DeSantis’s failure to foresee Disney’s response to his actions means he is “not the guy I want sitting across from President Xi and negotiating our next agreement with China or sitting across from Putin and trying to resolve what’s happening in Ukraine.”

 

Meanwhile, as questions mount about the potential success of a DeSantis bid, Representative John Rutherford on Tuesday became the sixth Florida Republican of the Sunshine State’s 20-member GOP delegation to endorse Trump. He joins Representatives Greg Steube, Cory Mills, Anna Paulina Luna, Byron Donalds, and Matt Gaetz in supporting the former president. The recent flurry of endorsements is no accident, according to Politico, which reported today that Trump officials sent emails to Florida members on Sunday asking for support ahead of DeSantis’s planned meeting in D.C. with GOP lawmakers on Tuesday.

 

Representative Lance Gooden of Texas also announced his endorsement of Trump on Tuesday “after careful consideration and a positive meeting" with DeSantis. His endorsement came as a surprise even to Team Trump, according to Politico.

 

"I met with Governor DeSantis, and while he has done commendable work in Florida, there is no doubt in my mind that President Trump is the only leader who can save America from the leftist onslaught we are currently facing," Gooden said in a statement.

[ccp]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/04/19/democrat-robert-kennedy-jr-launches-presidential-campaign-in-boston/

with no support from his Dem crazy partisan family - of course

interesting to see if Arnold supports him or Biden

probably Biden.......

[G M]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/04/19/democrat-robert-kennedy-jr-launches-presidential-campaign-in-boston/

with no support from his Dem crazy partisan family - of course

interesting to see if Arnold supports him or Biden

probably Biden.......

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/bobby-steps-up/

Bobby Steps Up
“It is neither our position nor our circumstances that define us, according to the Stoics, but our response to those circumstances; when destiny crushes us, small heroic gestures of courage and service can bring us peace and fulfillment. In applying our shoulder to the stone, we give order to a chaotic universe.” — RFK, Jr.
Clusterfuck Nation

For your reading pleasure Mondays and Fridays

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page

And thanks to all my Patrons for your support

   

     Of course, Yahoo News, and all the rest of the in-the-tank news media greeted Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s presidential announcement by branding him a “noted-anti-vaxxer,” as if that’s a bad thing. Yes, noted, thank you very much. Reuters elaborated: “Kennedy has been banned from YouTube and Instagram for spreading misinformation about vaccines and the COVID-19 pandemic.” By now, whenever you see the agit-prop platitude spreading misinformation, does your brain not instantly translate that into telling the truth? And by now, does banishment from social media not tell you that certain guilty parties recognize a truth-teller when they see one?

     Bobby Kennedy stepped up on Wednesday and gave a long and comprehensive speech so rich with historic resonance, intelligence, and flat-out bravery — in the face of, let’s face it, a Satanic opposition — that he made every other figure aspiring to high office within memory look like quality-control rejects from evolution’s Homo sapiens assembly line. For 90-minutes in a Boston ballroom, RFK, Jr. told America the truth: that its entire matrix of leadership has laid one trip after another on our country going all the way back to the murders of his father and uncle, and he did it plainly, gently, humorously at times, but with an unmistakable gravitas and decorum that must scare the beJeezus out of the low life-forms currently running things.

     Most of all, Bobby demonstrated that there is a way out of the bad-faith wilderness America has been lost in for years. He spoke to the audience in the ballroom, and to the country, in an adult conversational tone, without notes, as if he expected that voters would actually understand the problems we face: the wicked partnerships of corporations and governments to swindle and gaslight the public; the reckless military adventurism-for-profit campaign that has bankrupted the USA, now culminating in the Ukraine fiasco; the botched response to the Covid-19 episode and the chicanery that induced it; the insults to our ecosystem that are destroying the other organisms who live with us on this planet; and the financial chicanery that is driving America into inflation and bankruptcy. He reminded the nation of the good-faith efforts sixty years ago to end racial injustice — which has lately turned into a series of dispiriting hustles to promote antagonism and separation.

     Bobby’s entry onto the national stage is already a shock to the political system, which is why the captive news media is trying so hard to squash the news about it. They know that he brings something to this game that can trip-up the players currently on-the-field and take the 2024 contest in a wholly different direction than the owners of the game expected. Bobby’s confident adult demeanor at the podium alone is a reassuring and sharp contrast to the spookish mental vacancy of “Joe Biden” and the egotistic childishness of Mr. Trump. Voters will not fail to notice the difference, possibly even Woke Democrats lost in vaccine raptures and other cultish transports of self-righteousness.

     I think RFK, Jr. sees very clearly the historical moment he represents. He’s keenly aware of the shade thrown over this land by the murders of his father and President Kennedy, and he has said flat-out in so many words that our own CIA was behind the dastardly acts. He’s been in a position to know the animus between JFK and the founding director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, and the reckless blunders of the agency and its partners in the Pentagon who buffaloed President Kennedy into the Bay of Pigs farce and then tried to drag him deeper into the Vietnam quagmire. JFK resisted that, threatened to shred the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the four winds… and Allen Dulles whacked him. He got away with it the same way that today’s Intel “community” got away with RussiaGate and all their subsequent crimes. In short, Bobby Kennedy knows what it looks like when a government is at war against its own people.

     Everybody I know is justifiably worried that the Intel spooks might have no qualms about whacking Bobby Jr. He is at least as dangerous to the establishment today as his father and uncle were back in their day. Thus, his bravery in stepping up now, knowing what he knows. At the least, he will drag a set of issues into the political arena that his rivals would prefer to keep out in the cold and dark. He’ll get some assistance from events themselves, which are spooling out fast now.

     The Neocon’s Ukraine project has gone south. The result, which should be hugely embarrassing to our State and Defense departments, will be the paradox of Russia restoring order to a region that we wrecked on-purpose at great cost to the denizens of Ukraine — and, as Bobby pointed out, at great cost to the shattered American middle-class. America will also have to face all the criminal activities around the Covid-19 story: the machinations of Dr. Fauci and company in developing the virus and then the vaccines that proved to be so harmful and deadly; the stupid, disastrous lockdowns; and the government-directed censorship campaign against any and all voices in opposition to medical tyranny.

     Most of all, the Democratic Party faces a severe reformation. It’s about to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the diabolical Woke hall-of-mirrors it gamboled into under the Clintons and Barack Obama. How those characters deal with the uncomfortable reality of RFK, Jr. will be something to behold. Finally, there is the news, straight from The New York Times, that “Joe Biden” intends to announce his reelection plans within days. The idea is preposterous, of course, the old grifter visibly oxidizing a little more each day in plain sight of the whole world.

     In fact, it’s just another one of their lies, another trip they’re laying on America. The establishment Dems are actually prepping Gavin Newsom to run, another haircut-in-search-of-a-brain, like John Kerry before him. Governor Newsom: the man who almost overnight proudly turned California into a third world shithole. That’s who Bobby Kennedy will be debating, one way or another, in the many months ahead. Whether American handle the truth remains to be seen.

[Crafty_Dog]

RFK may well prove to be something of a black swan to the assumptions of the chattering class.

[G M]

RFK may well prove to be something of a black swan to the assumptions of the chattering class.

Their obvious dislike of him is a pretty compelling endorsement for me.

[Crafty_Dog]

He has been a regular on Tucker.

[G M]

He has been a regular on Tucker.

I didn't know that.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/nobody-got-my-approval-trump-furious-he-wasn-t-consulted-about-gop-debates-he-s-out/ar-AA1aknNn?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=61d5c09e566748f0be8f92405cffd076&ei=5

[ccp]

"nobody got my approval"

" I am out"

here we go again
it is about him

now for his games
saying he won't participate - or he will - or he won't
 with media getting sucked in

[ccp]

FWIW

if Ron runs , he should meet with Thiel.
he is not anti gay like MSM promotes
our side needs his money and clout and publicity

https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-peter-thiel-republican-megadonor-101712942.html

does thiel actually think pedophiles should be dancing in front of children
or they have gender changing surgery at young age or without even consent of parents?  he seems more reasonable than that .

[G M]

FWIW

if Ron runs , he should meet with Thiel.
he is not anti gay like MSM promotes
our side needs his money and clout and publicity

https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-peter-thiel-republican-megadonor-101712942.html

does thiel actually think pedophiles should be dancing in front of children
or they have gender changing surgery at young age or without even consent of parents?  he seems more reasonable than that .

And if he does?

[ccp]

"if he does ?"
we are screwed more 

[G M]

"if he does ?"
we are screwed more 

You aren’t voting your way out of what is coming.

[Crafty_Dog]

Biden vs. Trump in 2024? Don’t Be So Sure
Look at voters’ faces when you describe the match-up and you’ll realize they’re open to alternatives.
Peggy Noonan hedcutBy Peggy NoonanFollow
April 27, 2023 6:44 pm ET



Look at people’s faces when you say, “Looks like it’ll be Biden and Trump.” Those faces tell you everything—the soft wince, the shake of the head, the sigh. Those are the emblems of the 2024 campaign right now.

Seventy percent of his own party doesn’t want Joe Biden to run. More than half his party doesn’t want Donald Trump to run. Yet here at the moment we are, with this growing sense of sad inevitability. “Apparently there are only two people in America,” Desi Lydic, sitting in on “The Daily Show,” explained.


Mr. Biden is unopposed because his party couldn’t rouse itself to do what Democrats have almost existed to do, have a big, mean, knockdown, drag-out brawl. Sometimes party discipline is a failure and a mistake. Republicans at least are having a fight but, yes, primary state polls show Mr. Trump dominating.

Feels like another disaster, doesn’t it?


I agree with those who say the problem isn’t only Joe Biden’s age but the implication his age carries: that if he is re-elected there’s a significant chance Kamala Harris will become president. She has been a mystery, a politician who has been unable to say anything pertinent or even coherent on policy. Instead, the loud and sudden laughter unconnected to any clear stimuli, and the sheer looping nonsense of her words. This will give voters pause.

On the Republican side the great not-Trump option, the consistent number two in the polls, has been deflating. It is too early to say Ron DeSantis’s candidacy won’t work. But it feels like it won’t work. But life is surprising.

I’m not going to pick on him on the Disney fight. I thought Disney wrong to come forward, as a major corporation, and use its beloved name to take sides on a delicate state educational issue that was being handled democratically—as in, the governor, who would soon be up for re-election, made a policy decision, got a bill passed, and if the voters don’t like it they could throw him out. Disney shouldn’t have pushed its way in to advance its cultural preferences. That said, Mr. DeSantis’s pushback was as dramatic as it was incompetent.

A big challenge for politicians is the management of powerful and competing interests and institutions, especially those that want to galumph into local political arguments. You have to manage this with firmness but as little friction as possible, because there are always a million arguments and friction keeps things too hot. Not explaining your stand, and Mr. DeSantis isn’t good at explaining his thinking, doesn’t help. Giving the sense you’re getting a partisan kick out of the fracas makes it worse.

Yes, a big challenge for corporations is to remember their mission. For more than a century Budweiser’s mission was to make beer and sell it at a profit. Disney has been entertaining America for nearly a century. They should do that. Except in the most extraordinary and essential cases they shouldn’t give in to the temptation to put themselves forward as deep-thinking cultural leaders. Mind your business, keep your side of the street clean, treat your people well, set a standard, pay them well. Don’t add to the friction. It doesn’t help; it only makes things more bitter.

Mr. DeSantis is reported to be announcing his presidential run later this spring. I got an interesting note about him the other day from the veteran political operative Alex Castellanos. He said the problem for Mr. DeSantis is not that he’s unlikable: “The problem for Ron is worse. It’s that he does not like us.” When voters see a political figure likes them, they start to trust him, because they know “he will do a lot to preserve their affection.”

Politicians find ways to be popular when they’re not so likable. Richard Nixon was one.

But here is the real point of this column. If it starts to seem clear that America is once again locked into a Trump-Biden race, I think the electorate is going to get frisky. I don’t see people just accepting it. I see pushback and little rebellions. Two examples:


Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who announced last week, this week hit 19% support among Democratic voters. That’s a lot! Especially for a guy who’s been labeled a bit of a nut. (He has been a leader of the idea that childhood vaccines are connected to autism.) But his larger general message would appeal to the edges of left and right, and blends into the general populist mood: Corporations and the government are lying to you, playing you for a fool.

And in an odd way his past nuttiness bolsters his believability: He has worn the scorn of establishments as a medal. His own family isn’t for him. It doesn’t seem to mess with his swing.

He has what Mr. Trump has: star power. And there is the name. I recently was with a physical therapist—early middle age, suburban, not especially interested in politics—who, while working my back, asked if I knew Mr. Kennedy. No, I said. Is he drawing your interest?

She spoke admiringly of his family—of JFK, of RFK the father. She liked them and thought their politics were similar to hers. I asked if she had any living memory of JFK or RFK. No, she said, she was born after they were killed. And yet she spoke of them as if she remembered them.

I say watch him. He is going to be a force this year.

Second, watch a third-party bid. The centrist group No Labels says it’s provisionally attempting to get on the ballot in all 50 states. We’ll see how that works. But a third party, if it comes, could have real and surprising power in this cycle. I am the only person I know who thinks this but, again, look at peoples’ faces when you say it will be Trump or Biden.

Independents now outnumber members of each party. No hunger for a third-party effort is discernible in the polls. So the effort would have to blow people out of their comfortable trenches and make them want to go over the top to seize new ground. It would have to be something centrists, by their nature, aren’t: dramatic. The people who would lead such an effort worry about whether or not they’d wind up as spoilers for the Democrats. You could argue as well it might spoil things for the Republicans.

They should be thinking: We are past the moment for such questions. If you think the country is in trouble and needs another slate of candidates, do it. No ambivalence, no guilt about spoiling it for the lesser of evils. If you’re serious, go for it. Look at the other two guys as spoilers.

A third party would have to have compelling candidates for president and vice president. That would be hard. I am not certain a third party is desirable. But I don’t think it’s impossible.

Third-party enthusiasts tend to be moderate, sober-minded. Such people are almost by definition not swept by the romance of history. But we are living in a prolonged crazy time in American politics. Anything can happen now.

Really, anything. I wonder if they know it.

[Crafty_Dog]

second

Has Biden Already Lost Iowa and New Hampshire?
Voters aren’t eager to accept a political demotion.
James Freeman hedcutBy James FreemanFollow
April 27, 2023 4:46 pm ET


The Democratic establishment figured it could get away with demoting Iowa and New Hampshire from their traditional spots at the start of the presidential nominating contests calendar. The theory was that by promising sanctions against any candidates unwilling to accept a new Biden-friendly calendar, Democrats could ensure the elevation of states like South Carolina, home of key Biden ally Rep. James Clyburn. But what if Mr. Biden’s rivals don’t care about the Democratic establishment and aren’t afraid of punishments from party bosses?

As voters keep expressing to pollsters how little they think of Mr. Biden, Iowa is trying to maintain its kickoff caucus and New Hampshire is threatening to be a first-in-the-nation primary loss for the incumbent. Meanwhile, voters nationwide may not be impressed with the Biden effort to rewrite political rules in his favor.

Alex Seitz-Wald reports today for NBC News that the president is “already on track to sacrifice New Hampshire’s famed primary to a fringe rival like Marianne Williamson or Robert Kennedy Jr.” and adds:

The unusual situation is one of Biden’s own making, thanks to the new primary calendar the Democratic National Committee ratified at his behest in February, which seeks to demote Iowa and New Hampshire and prohibits candidates from campaigning — or even putting their name on the ballot — in a state that jumps the line.

The problem is that New Hampshire and Iowa, both of which Biden lost in 2020, plan to disregard the DNC and hold their contests first anyway, most likely forcing Biden to forfeit the first unofficial contests of 2024.

The rules apply to Williamson and Kennedy as well, but they’ve indicated they’re willing to accept the DNC’s unspecified penalties for rule violations since they’re running anti-establishment campaigns anyway.

Even pillars of the Democratic establishment in New Hampshire have been souring on Mr. Biden. This week the powerful Service Employees International Union announced its expected endorsement of Mr. Biden’s re-election. But the same day a Granite State affiliate, the State Employees’ Association of New Hampshire, issued its own announcement:


After careful consideration and in stark contrast to the State Employees’ Association affiliate, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), we want to make it clear that we are not endorsing Joe Biden for re-election in the upcoming presidential race at this time.
Following a robust analysis of the current political landscape, we have come to the conclusion that our members and New Hampshire voters deserve a competitive Democratic Primary. While we respect President Biden’s decades of experience in public service and his commitment to public policy, we believe that his record and actions during his first term as president do not merit an automatic re-endorsement. We eagerly await his return to the Granite State to continue the conversation about his labor priorities, and our door is always open to President Biden.

What makes all of this especially awkward for the White House is that, roughly eight months before primary voters start going to the polls, the “fringe rivals” are already getting some traction. Ms. Williamson and Mr. Kennedy shouldn’t take this personally. They are legitimately strange candidates. Yet a national Emerson College poll released today on the race for the Democratic presidential nomination pegs Mr. Kennedy’s support at 21% and Ms. Williamson’s at a respectable 8%.

It’s Joe Biden’s weakness that is inviting Democratic voters to consider such alternatives and this weakness is likely to invite other candidates to enter the race. What’s also unsettling for the White House is that if Mr. Biden is unable to execute on his strategy of ducking debates and somehow ends up on a stage with the fringe rivals, he could easily come off as the strangest of the three. Josh Christenson reports for the New York Post:

No wonder President Biden needs a cheat sheet while taking questions from adults.

The 80-year-old commander-in-chief had difficulty remembering his recent state visit to Ireland Thursday while being grilled by kids during a Take Your Child to Work event at the White House.

Things apparently went downhill from there, according to the Post’s Mr. Christenson:

Another child at the White House event asked Biden: “Do you watch the Stanley Cup playoffs, and if you do, do you have a favorite team?”

“I did, and I do: the Philadelphia Flyers,” the president answered, apparently unaware that the team did not make the tournament this year.

The commander-in-chief also rattled off the names of grandchildren Naomi, 29, Finnegan, 23, Maisy, 22, Natalie, 18, Robert Hunter Biden II, 17, and Beau Jr., 2, but stopped short of mentioning Navy Joan Roberts, the often-unacknowledged 4-year-old daughter of Hunter and Lunden Roberts, a former stripper.

Good thing for Mr. Biden none of the young questioners is constitutionally eligible to run against him.

[G M]

Biden vs. Trump in 2024? Don’t Be So Sure
Look at voters’ faces when you describe the match-up and you’ll realize they’re open to alternatives.
Peggy Noonan hedcutBy Peggy NoonanFollow
April 27, 2023 6:44 pm ET



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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in Boston, April 19. PHOTO: BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS
Look at people’s faces when you say, “Looks like it’ll be Biden and Trump.” Those faces tell you everything—the soft wince, the shake of the head, the sigh. Those are the emblems of the 2024 campaign right now.

Seventy percent of his own party doesn’t want Joe Biden to run. More than half his party doesn’t want Donald Trump to run. Yet here at the moment we are, with this growing sense of sad inevitability. “Apparently there are only two people in America,” Desi Lydic, sitting in on “The Daily Show,” explained.

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Mr. Biden is unopposed because his party couldn’t rouse itself to do what Democrats have almost existed to do, have a big, mean, knockdown, drag-out brawl. Sometimes party discipline is a failure and a mistake. Republicans at least are having a fight but, yes, primary state polls show Mr. Trump dominating.

Feels like another disaster, doesn’t it?

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I agree with those who say the problem isn’t only Joe Biden’s age but the implication his age carries: that if he is re-elected there’s a significant chance Kamala Harris will become president. She has been a mystery, a politician who has been unable to say anything pertinent or even coherent on policy. Instead, the loud and sudden laughter unconnected to any clear stimuli, and the sheer looping nonsense of her words. This will give voters pause.

On the Republican side the great not-Trump option, the consistent number two in the polls, has been deflating. It is too early to say Ron DeSantis’s candidacy won’t work. But it feels like it won’t work. But life is surprising.

I’m not going to pick on him on the Disney fight. I thought Disney wrong to come forward, as a major corporation, and use its beloved name to take sides on a delicate state educational issue that was being handled democratically—as in, the governor, who would soon be up for re-election, made a policy decision, got a bill passed, and if the voters don’t like it they could throw him out. Disney shouldn’t have pushed its way in to advance its cultural preferences. That said, Mr. DeSantis’s pushback was as dramatic as it was incompetent.

A big challenge for politicians is the management of powerful and competing interests and institutions, especially those that want to galumph into local political arguments. You have to manage this with firmness but as little friction as possible, because there are always a million arguments and friction keeps things too hot. Not explaining your stand, and Mr. DeSantis isn’t good at explaining his thinking, doesn’t help. Giving the sense you’re getting a partisan kick out of the fracas makes it worse.

Yes, a big challenge for corporations is to remember their mission. For more than a century Budweiser’s mission was to make beer and sell it at a profit. Disney has been entertaining America for nearly a century. They should do that. Except in the most extraordinary and essential cases they shouldn’t give in to the temptation to put themselves forward as deep-thinking cultural leaders. Mind your business, keep your side of the street clean, treat your people well, set a standard, pay them well. Don’t add to the friction. It doesn’t help; it only makes things more bitter.

Mr. DeSantis is reported to be announcing his presidential run later this spring. I got an interesting note about him the other day from the veteran political operative Alex Castellanos. He said the problem for Mr. DeSantis is not that he’s unlikable: “The problem for Ron is worse. It’s that he does not like us.” When voters see a political figure likes them, they start to trust him, because they know “he will do a lot to preserve their affection.”

Politicians find ways to be popular when they’re not so likable. Richard Nixon was one.

But here is the real point of this column. If it starts to seem clear that America is once again locked into a Trump-Biden race, I think the electorate is going to get frisky. I don’t see people just accepting it. I see pushback and little rebellions. Two examples:

READ MORE DECLARATIONS
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who announced last week, this week hit 19% support among Democratic voters. That’s a lot! Especially for a guy who’s been labeled a bit of a nut. (He has been a leader of the idea that childhood vaccines are connected to autism.) But his larger general message would appeal to the edges of left and right, and blends into the general populist mood: Corporations and the government are lying to you, playing you for a fool.

And in an odd way his past nuttiness bolsters his believability: He has worn the scorn of establishments as a medal. His own family isn’t for him. It doesn’t seem to mess with his swing.

He has what Mr. Trump has: star power. And there is the name. I recently was with a physical therapist—early middle age, suburban, not especially interested in politics—who, while working my back, asked if I knew Mr. Kennedy. No, I said. Is he drawing your interest?

She spoke admiringly of his family—of JFK, of RFK the father. She liked them and thought their politics were similar to hers. I asked if she had any living memory of JFK or RFK. No, she said, she was born after they were killed. And yet she spoke of them as if she remembered them.

I say watch him. He is going to be a force this year.

Second, watch a third-party bid. The centrist group No Labels says it’s provisionally attempting to get on the ballot in all 50 states. We’ll see how that works. But a third party, if it comes, could have real and surprising power in this cycle. I am the only person I know who thinks this but, again, look at peoples’ faces when you say it will be Trump or Biden.

Independents now outnumber members of each party. No hunger for a third-party effort is discernible in the polls. So the effort would have to blow people out of their comfortable trenches and make them want to go over the top to seize new ground. It would have to be something centrists, by their nature, aren’t: dramatic. The people who would lead such an effort worry about whether or not they’d wind up as spoilers for the Democrats. You could argue as well it might spoil things for the Republicans.

They should be thinking: We are past the moment for such questions. If you think the country is in trouble and needs another slate of candidates, do it. No ambivalence, no guilt about spoiling it for the lesser of evils. If you’re serious, go for it. Look at the other two guys as spoilers.

A third party would have to have compelling candidates for president and vice president. That would be hard. I am not certain a third party is desirable. But I don’t think it’s impossible.

Third-party enthusiasts tend to be moderate, sober-minded. Such people are almost by definition not swept by the romance of history. But we are living in a prolonged crazy time in American politics. Anything can happen now.

Really, anything. I wonder if they know it.

Noonan should have retired a long time ago.

[ccp]

"She has been a mystery, a politician who has been unable to say anything pertinent or even coherent on policy. Instead, the loud and sudden laughter unconnected to any clear stimuli, and the sheer looping nonsense of her words. This will give voters pause."

She is not a mystery .  She is far left woke/BLM total partisan pain in the derriere.

"Independents now outnumber members of each party."

I don't think this is true at all.

just because many do not like Trump or Biden does not make them independents .
most are fixed and will vote for who ever is the nominee IMHO. At most 20% are truly independent as per Mark Penn.  He states it used to be 1/3 Democrat , 1/3 Republican, 1/3 independent (or those who could be swayed) yrs ago. Now 40% Dem ,40% Rep, 20 % who could be swayed.

[G M]

"She has been a mystery, a politician who has been unable to say anything pertinent or even coherent on policy. Instead, the loud and sudden laughter unconnected to any clear stimuli, and the sheer looping nonsense of her words. This will give voters pause."

She is not a mystery .  She is far left woke/BLM total partisan pain in the derriere.

"Independents now outnumber members of each party."

I don't think this is true at all.

just because many do not like Trump or Biden does not make them independents .
most are fixed and will vote for who ever is the nominee IMHO. At most 20% are truly independent as per Mark Penn.  He states it used to be 1/3 Democrat , 1/3 Republican, 1/3 independent (or those who could be swayed) yrs ago. Now 40% Dem ,40% Rep, 20 % who could be swayed.

And the fortifiers and the mysterious arrival of endless mail in ballots. The most important of all voters!

[G M]

"She has been a mystery, a politician who has been unable to say anything pertinent or even coherent on policy. Instead, the loud and sudden laughter unconnected to any clear stimuli, and the sheer looping nonsense of her words. This will give voters pause."

She is not a mystery .  She is far left woke/BLM total partisan pain in the derriere.

"Independents now outnumber members of each party."

I don't think this is true at all.

just because many do not like Trump or Biden does not make them independents .
most are fixed and will vote for who ever is the nominee IMHO. At most 20% are truly independent as per Mark Penn.  He states it used to be 1/3 Democrat , 1/3 Republican, 1/3 independent (or those who could be swayed) yrs ago. Now 40% Dem ,40% Rep, 20 % who could be swayed.

And the fortifiers and the mysterious arrival of endless mail in ballots. The most important of all voters!

https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/136/399/453/original/86c08a5ef3fe629b.png

[Crafty_Dog]

Playing that one forward.

[G M]

https://cjhopkins.substack.com/p/the-great-divide?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[ccp]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/newsmax-reportedly-planning-offer-tucker-181516037.html

One problem is we have Trump....

The other are the Rinos....and other DC uniparty types

[G M]

https://cjhopkins.substack.com/p/the-great-divide?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

https://summit.news/2023/04/28/video-abc-news-admits-it-censored-rfk-jr-interview-for-false-claims-about-covid-19-vaccines/

[Crafty_Dog]

The Great Divide

CJ HOPKINS
APR 28, 2023

Robert Kennedy, Jr. is running for president. I could not possibly be more excited. So, I’m going to give Bobby some unsolicited advice, which, if he knows what’s good for him, he will not take.

I feel OK about doing this because, even if Bobby, in the wee hours of the night, when the mind is vulnerable to dangerous ideas, were to seriously consider taking my advice, I am sure he has people — i.e., PR people, campaign strategists, pollsters, and so on — that would not hesitate to take him aside and disabuse him of any inclination to do that.

OK, before I give Bobby this terrible advice, I have to do the “full disclosure” thing. I’m a pretty big fan of RFK, Jr. I don’t generally get involved in electoral politics, but, if I were a Democrat, I would definitely vote for him. Also, he was kind enough to blurb my book (which isn’t going to make his PR people happy) and invite me onto his podcast, RFK, Jr. The Defender, to talk about “New Normal” totalitarianism. So, I am fairly biased in favor of Bobby Kennedy. I think he is an admirable, honorable human being. I would love to see him in the Oval Office.

That isn’t going to happen, of course. The global-capitalist ruling classes are never going to let him near the Oval Office. They learned their lesson back in 2016. There are not going to be any more unauthorized presidents. The folks at GloboCap are done playing grab-ass, and they want us to know that they are done playing grab-ass. That’s what the last six years have been about.

As I put it in a column in January, 2021 …

“… This, basically, is what we’ve just experienced. The global capitalist ruling classes have just reminded us who is really in charge, who the US military answers to, and how quickly they can strip away the facade of democracy and the rule of law. They have reminded us of this for the last ten months, by putting us under house arrest, beating and arresting us for not following orders, for not wearing masks, for taking walks without permission, for having the audacity to protest their decrees, for challenging their official propaganda, about the virus, the election results, etc. They are reminding us currently by censoring dissent, and deplatforming anyone they deem a threat to their official narratives and ideology … GloboCap is teaching us a lesson. I don’t know how much clearer they could make it. They just installed a new puppet president, who can’t even simulate mental acuity, in a locked-down, military-guarded ceremony which no one was allowed to attend, except a few members of the ruling classes. They got some epigone of Albert Speer to convert the Mall (where the public normally gathers) into a ‘field of flags‘ symbolizing ‘unity.’ They even did the Nazi ‘Lichtdom‘ thing. To hammer the point home, they got Lady Gaga to dress up as a Hunger Games character with a ‘Mockingjay’ brooch and sing the National Anthem. They broadcast this spectacle to the entire world.”

Does that sound like the behavior of an unaccountable, supranational power apparatus that is prepared to stand by and let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., or Donald Trump, or any other unauthorized person, become the next president of the United States?

So, here’s my bad advice for Bobby.


Fuck them. They’re not going to let you win, anyway. They are going to smear you, slime you, demonize you, distort every other thing you say, and just generally lie about who you are and what you believe in and what you stand for. They are going to paint you as a bull-goose-loony, formerly smack-addled, conspiracy-theorizing, anti-vax fanatic no matter what you do. If you tone down your act and try to “heal the divide” and “end the division,” they are going to have you for lunch, and then sit around picking their teeth with your bones. You know, and I know, and the American people know, that the things you say you want to do as president — which I know you sincerely want to do as president and are crazy enough to actually try to do, i.e., “to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country” — are things ... well, as Michael Corleone once put it, that they would "use all their power to keep from happening."

So, fuck it, and fuck them. Tell the truth.

Not the ready-for-prime-time truth. Not the toned-down-for-mainstream-consumption truth. The truth. The ugly, unvarnished truth. The scary, crazy-sounding truth. The angry, divisive, uncensored truth.

Yes, there is a “divide.” A great divide. A chasm. A schism. A gulf. An abyss. A gaping, yawning, unbridgeable fissure. A Grand Canyon-sized fault in the foundation of society. A rupture in the very fabric of reality.

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As I noted in another 2021 column, the global-capitalist ruling classes have decommissioned one “reality” and are replacing it with another “reality” … corporate feudalism, pathologized totalitarianism, global corporatism, or whatever anybody wants to call it. Whatever we call it, everyone feels it. OK, I’m going to be obnoxious and quote myself again …

“During the changeover from the old ‘reality’ to the new ‘reality,’ the society is torn apart. The old ‘reality’ is being disassembled and the new one has not yet taken its place. It feels like madness, and, in a way, it is. For a time, the society is split in two, as the two ‘realities’ battle it out for dominance. ‘Reality’ being what it is (i.e., monolithic), this is a fight to the death. In the end, only one ‘reality’ can prevail.”

The folks at GloboCap are right on the verge of permanently implementing their new “reality.” In that “reality,” an apocalyptic virus (with a survival rate of roughly 99.7%) nearly wiped out the entire planet, and would have, if not for the Emergency Health Measures (i.e., mass house arrest, forced conformity rituals, cancellation of constitutional rights, censorship of dissent, official propaganda on a scale that even Goebbels could never have dreamed of, fomenting of mass hysteria and hatred, segregation and persecution of a designated scapegoat underclass) imposed on society by our admittedly imperfect but well-intentioned government and global health authorities. In that “reality,” the “vaccines” they forced on billions of people (who did not need them) are “safe and effective” (despite the fact, which even they now acknowledge, that they have seriously injured or killed millions of people). In that “reality,” a few hundred unarmed Trump supporters horsing around in the Capitol Building was an “insurrection,” or “attempted coup,” or … well, you get the picture. There are no neo-Nazis in the Ukraine. The Russians blew up their own pipelines. And so on.

What I am trying to get at, Bobby, is that those of us who have refused to convert to the new “reality” — which I am guessing is approximately 25-30% of the global population — are not looking for a leader who can “heal the divide.” We are in a fight. We are fighting for reality. We’re fighting for what’s left of reality.

And, at the moment, we are getting our asses kicked.

So, fuck it. What have you got to lose? Throw out the playbook. Fire your PR people. Go for broke. Tell the truth. Tell folks what we’re up against. That it isn’t something an election is going to fix. That it isn’t something a new president can fix. That it isn’t fixable. That it is a fucking fight. And not one according to the Queensberry Rules. A ball-kicking, eye-gouging, chair-swinging, bar fight. And that sometimes, like now, when there is nowhere to run to … well, you have to stand and fight, even if you know you’re going to lose.

That’s it. That’s my bad advice for Bobby. Hopefully, one of his staff will spot it and delete it before he reads his email. Otherwise, I’m afraid he might be tempted to take it. He’s already leaning in that direction. And … well, you know how those Irish love a good fight

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/he-s-going-to-be-dead-in-five-years-cnn-anchor-stunned-by-nikki-haley-comment-biden-likely-to-die/ar-AA1awxXw?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=48857996d5654e559a3c94160be3ee86&ei=21

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-insists-desanctis-is-failing-badly-just-hours-after-report-reveals-governor-s-fundraising-smoked-his-donors-are-calling-me/ar-AA1awZis?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=091a47b5f6414a98a3ba4c3c7a76a5a5&ei=11

[ccp]

https://nypost.com/2023/04/30/republicans-must-confront-abortion-issue-head-on-to-win-swing-voters-in-2024-rnc-chair/

I say the same for climate change

cannot ignore it - it is main issue for many young voters

anti - wokeness alone will simply not be enough

[G M]

https://nypost.com/2023/04/30/republicans-must-confront-abortion-issue-head-on-to-win-swing-voters-in-2024-rnc-chair/

I say the same for climate change

cannot ignore it - it is main issue for many young voters

anti - wokeness alone will simply not be enough

https://idahocapitalsun.com/2022/10/03/satanic-temple-files-lawsuit-over-idaho-abortion-laws/

It's a simple question. "Do you support the satanic temple's pro-abortion stance?"

BTW, McDaniels ignores the vote fraud in the upcoming 2024 selection just as she did in the 2020 and 2022 selections. That's not accidental.

[ccp]

"It's a simple question. "Do you support the satanic temple's pro-abortion stance?"

turning it around to support the Republicans lose

albeit you are 100 % certain vote fraud etc will make it inevitable

As I have said I support ~ 14 weeks limit and not total ban.

So I guess I am satan ?

[G M]

"It's a simple question. "Do you support the satanic temple's pro-abortion stance?"

turning it around to support the Republicans lose

albeit you are 100 % certain vote fraud etc will make it inevitable

As I have said I support ~ 14 weeks limit and not total ban.

So I guess I am satan ?

Is it a baby before 14 weeks?

When people wonder how people could defend slavery, look how people defend abortion now.

[ccp]

fact is many in the US don't.

And I don't want to lose the election over this - not to say this would definitely be an end all .

There will always be evil in humanity and in nature .

Lets see if we can limit it as
eradicating it is hopeless.

The way the nature is - animals eating each other is pretty darn evil.

If God set this up then why this way?  God not off the hook......

[G M]

fact is many in the US don't.

And I don't want to lose the election over this - not to say this would definitely be an end all .

There will always be evil in humanity and in nature .

Lets see if we can limit it as
eradicating it is hopeless.

The way the nature is - animals eating each other is pretty darn evil.

If God set this up then why this way?  God not off the hook......

We have sentience. We are responsible for what we do. A person without a moral core is very dangerous, a nation without a moral core is the literal stuff of nightmares.

You are old enough to remember what America was and what is is now.

If you are not serving God, you are serving someone, or something else.

As Robert Zimmerman once sang:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wC10VWDTzmU&pp=ygUfeW91IGFyZSBnb2luZyB0byBzZXJ2ZSBzb21lYm9keQ%3D%3D

[Crafty_Dog]

DESANTIS RESPONDS TO TRUMP’S POLL NUMBERS IN JAPAN… WSJ: “I’m not a candidate, so we’ll see if and when that changes”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wasn’t a candidate for president, but he got a welcome worthy of an American political VIP Monday in Japan, his first stop on an around-the-world tour.

Striding into the prime minister’s office holding the hand of his wife, Casey, Mr. DeSantis held a roughly 40-minute meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. He said they discussed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s provocations and the Chinese Communist Party—the sort of issues presidents worry about.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/shut-down-the-administrative-state-2024-presidential-candidate-vows-to-cure-americas-cultural-cancer_5231134.html?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2023-05-01&src_cmp=gv-2023-05-01&utm_medium=email&est=nlxIGnoffNeFztmLk3ZU9FaernS8tudxz90qjFl2ISDkzXW%2BPAj0UN%2BNuNwxBf2gZQdm

[G M]

"if he does ?"
we are screwed more 

You aren’t voting your way out of what is coming.

https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/5c5c4fc5a9ff82c4.jpeg

[ccp]

Trump opens 36% lead reads the headlines

according to CBS poll

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-opens-36-lead-over-230800272.html

"The CBS News/YouGov poll of 2,372 voters makes it clear that Trump has consolidated his position"

does not say if democrat voters included but if so of course they all want trump

I just don't but it .
I don't but republicans are dumping desantis because of disney which of course rinos and dems want us to believe 

[Crafty_Dog]

1) Polls have been known to push desired results.

2) DeSantis has not even announced yet.  Let's see what he brings when he does.

We live in interesting times!

[G M]

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/pretend-to-the-end/

[ccp]

https://nypost.com/2023/05/03/vivek-ramaswamys-vision-is-america-first-even-more-than-trump/

I know he has close to zero chance to win but he does bring good ideas to the table and brings attention to them
is he worthy of  his very OWN thread on this great forum?