If you don't think Hillary's failure to effectively campaign in many states (or even visit Wisconsin once during the General Election) were not "consequential shockers", you are obviously blinded by your Trump Derangement Syndrome.
James Comey's so-called "11th hour
letter and public announcement" was only a minor shock. The real "consequential shocker" occurred in July when he inexplicably indicated Hillary, nor any of her minions, would be indicted (let alone sanctioned) for the homebrew email server she set up to thwart Freedom of Information Act requests and to stymie Congressional oversight. Hillary nonchalantly exposed information at the highest classifications our country uses to those not cleared to review it. Even more, the FBI could not conclude whether or not her server had been compromised by foreign governments.
I can't remember which Intelligence
Community head (Brennan?) testified they would've targeted Hillary's server had they been a foreign intelligence service.
Comey based his recommendations on a lack of "intent" to break the law when, anyone who has held a security clearance above SECRET knows just like anybody who reads the statute knows intent is specifically not required to having been considered in violation of it.
Hillary's pathetic campaign strategy and Comey/Lynch/Obama effectively placing her "above the law" in July are the MORE consequential shockers in 2016.
In reality, if the DNC hadn't conspired against Bernie Sanders to ensure Hillary won the nomination and Comey simply followed the law and recommended the DOJ indict Hillary in July, Bernie would've been the rightful Democrat Presidential Nominee. The outcome of a Sanders versus Trump Presidential Election will never be known.
Any thinking American would WANT an FBI Director and Attorney General who don't care what American's think. Their job is to judiciously enforce the laws, as written, and protect American's civil rights as enshrined in the US Constitution and the written law.
If they are basing their decisions on popularity polls or opinion pieces, we effectively negate the idea this is a country of laws and not men.
Many Americans are clueless about the written law and about our Bill of Rights. Upon which people's opinions do you think federal law enforcement and judicial officials should base their decisions?
How would you outfit federal officials (not "paramilitary agents") to protect federal property when so-called "lawful protesters" are lighting fires, throwing Molotov cocktails, cutting through fencing, throwing bricks, throwing frozen water bottles, launching projectiles from powerful slingshots, trying to blind them with powerful lasers, etc.?
Or, don't you believe the federal government has the DUTY to defend a federal courthouse in the nation's interior when the local government officials refuse to do so?
Yes, GDP is down significantly. What did you think would happen when certain politicians advocate maintaining the lockdown and preventing businesses from reopening? Growth?
I'm not sure which politician you think has advocated for "term limits"; but, please let me know. They have a campaign donation in their future.
In which way do you think that President Trump has "knowingly amplified" the pandemic?
Do you think Post Office problems are new? You can search the term for any year going back at least fourteen (which I did) and even further. Not surprisingly, the culprit most Identified with the problems was Congress and the relief requested was… Deregulation. That is a hallmark of which Administration?
You quote a Brennan Center for Justice statistic for voter fraud at between 0.003% and 0.0025%. But then, you invalidate your own statistic by noting a voter was more likely to be "struck by lightning than he will impersonate another voter AT THE POLLS [emphasis mine]."
Democrats don't want to vote AT THE POLLS. They want universal mail-in ballots sent to every registered voter whether dead or moved away. Even the Brennan Center for Justice stated "mail ballots are more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting".
They downplayed it with the "struck by lightning" statistic you offered.
The Brennan Center for Justice and you both note that there are states that have 100% mail-in voting now.
But, those jurisdictions have experience dealing with a mass influx of mail during elections. The rest of the state's post offices lack that practical experience. To expect them to be able to handle the increased workload and to get those ballots to the people doing the counting and expecting that to go off "without a hitch" whether or not Orange Man Bad is a stretch.
Do you think New York City post offices will be ready? Washington DC's? Miami's? Detroit's? Philadelphia's?
Have you seen the CBS News experiment with "mail-in ballots" actually IN Philadelphia just recently?
Faux ballots approximating the size and weight of mail-in ballots were mailed from across Philadelphia (mimicking Philadelphia voters sending in their ballots) to a PO Box (simulating an election office).
Twenty+ percent of the ballots were not received for more than four days. Three percent were NEVER received (at least for the duration of the experiment).
If 100% mail-in voting had been used in 2016 and a majority of those lost mail-in ballots would have been for Candidate Trump, the missing ballots would have been enough to swing the election for
Hillary.
THAT, more than any feigned concern about voters catching COVID-19 is the reason Democrats are pushing universal mail-in voting in 2020.
One of the sources included with the line "Trump and GOP enablers want to suppress voters at the polls" includes examples from two jurisdictions that will supposedly suppress the vote in 2020: Wisconsin and California.
States and local authorities control elections, not the federal government.
Both those states are led by Democrat governors. Are you asserting that those Democrat governors are in league with President Trump to suppress the vote and secure his re-election? Seems strange.
Any reduction in the number of polling places for recent elections or proposed for 2020 is the decision of THOSE Democrats, not the GOP or President Trump.
Do you think only the GOP is recruiting volunteers to act as "poll watchers"?
There are Democrat aligned groups planning to do the same thing.
You can't expect the election results to be available election night or days later or weeks later or possibly even months later.
Many States ARE NOT ready for majority mail-in voting. Plus, if you are old enough to remember the "hanging chad" fiasco of the 2000 Presidential Election, you can expect that ON STEROIDS!
EACH Party is going to be questioning the validity of ballots received from "enclaves" known to support the opposing candidate if they fail to comply with ANY detail that locality/State requires. States often require 100% accuracy on the printed name on the ballot and if there is a discrepancy – CHALLENGE! If the signature doesn't match the registration card in some manifest way – CHALLENGE! If the ballot was received AN HOUR past the deadline for receipt at the election office: CHALLENGE!
Challenges will necessitate involving the Third Coequal Branch to referee the many alleged illegal actions of representatives from the other Party and the validity of some votes.
Did you forget that the Democrats control one Chamber of Congress? You must with your comment "The RNC is prepared for their fraudulent war, including a hefty legal defense fund and HUDDLES WITH REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS TO PASS LAWS THAT DIMINISH AND DENY VOTING RIGHTS [emphasis mine]. No surprise there."
I'm sure Nancy Pelosi is going to advise her caucus to vote for these alleged bills ASAP, right? TDS, there is no other explanation.
There are no "armed, unidentified federal agents" that were sent to Portland or will be deployed to other US cities requiring them. They had identification except easy access to their name to prevent doxing, which occurred in some places.
Yes, "Americans are very suspicious" because Democrats misrepresent the role of the federal agents and why they are needed. Their allies in the media amplify those lies.
Protecting federal property (like courthouses) used to be a bipartisan issue. One has to ask why that will is no longer displayed by both Partys?
You subscribe to the idea that the DOJ is politicized and corrupt under the Attorney General, William Barr?
I mean, it's not like he said he was the President's "wing man" or anything. If you can show where the Attorney General secretly met on an airport tarmac and had a one-on-one with the politically-connected spouse of a high-level Republican official under DOJ investigation, I would be interested in that.
Similarly, if you can show offices under William Barr violated the sovereignty of another country without their permission to ship high-powered weapons to criminal, drug-dealing gangs, that may sway me to your opinion. Plus, he didn't obfuscate when Congress questioned him about the program and end up getting censured, or anything like that, right?
William Barr's DOJ hasn't, to my knowledge, signed off on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant requests used to authorize spying on American citizens with multiple, up to 17, factual errors or inaccuracies. He hasn't, to my knowledge, abetted the President by authorizing secret phone taps on the phones of reporters, right?
Despite a contentious relationship with reporters, neither has William Barr been complicit in identifying a reporter as an "un-indicted co-conspirator" just for doing his job in an unauthorized leak investigation. He also hasn't overseen a number of whistleblower indictments which exceeded the total such prosecutions of all other Administrations before his.
Yes, it will take a generation to reestablish the credibility and independence of the DOJ. Not because of anything William Barr is doing. It was because of his predecessor. All the things identified as things William Barr has not done as Attorney General WERE done by Holder/Lynch.
Roger Stone had his sentence "commuted " he didn't receive a pardon.
That means he carries the stigma of being a convicted felon for the rest of his life. Unlike…
The members of the Whiskey Rebellion who were pardoned by President Washington
Confederate officials and Military personnel who were issued sweeping pardons by President Johnson
President Nixon who was pardoned by President Ford even though he had not yet been indicted for Watergate
Clinton’s brother, Roger, his business partner, Susan McDougall, and financier, Mark Rich, who was wanted for tax evasion and illegally dealing with Iran, were pardoned by President Clinton
You are free to debate the limits of Executive Power. But, to suggest the commutation of Roger Stone’s prison sentence and probation ranks up there in even the Top 25 Most Egregious Commutations or Probations Issued by a President requires a suspension of all reality.
You write as if an Attorney General answering a question that he would "follow the law" is cryptic and evading. "Which law" you question.
Are you suggesting that the Attorney General shouldn't be bound to follow a "new law" even though it would have to be approved by a Democrat majority House of Representatives and reach a 60-vote cloture requirement in the Senate requiring Democrat votes?
Should a future Attorney General serving when there is single-Party control of Congress but the Executive Branch being under control of the opposing Party have the OPTION to follow a new law?
You write that "the new president spoke ominously of 'American carnage', none of us knew exactly what carnage he was referring to".
Here's the text from the speech:
"But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.
This American carnage stops right here and stops right now."
There was no secret and the President has steadfastly worked to address each of those issues:
He has worked to establish "Opportunity Zones" to bring jobs and lift those inner-city mothers and children out of poverty.
He has eliminated burdensome regulations and passed sweeping tax changes to reinvigorate those idle factories.
Together with Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, he has advocated for giving children trapped in failing schools access to school choice.
It would be hard-pressed to name a President in the past half-century more focused on crime reduction, targeting gangs like MS-13, or securing the border to stem the flow of drugs than President Trump.
In summary, your article is completely without merit and is devoid of intellectual capital.
