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Elizabeth Warren: Republicans in 'Revenge Fantasy' over Trump Conviction

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said Wednesday on MSNBC's "Alex Wagner Tonight" that Republicans were in a "revenge fantasy" over former President Donald Trump's guilty verdict in the New York business document trial.

The post Elizabeth Warren: Republicans in ‘Revenge Fantasy’ over Trump Conviction appeared first on Breitbart.

McCabe: DOJ, FBI Folks Worried About Being Thrown in Jail in Second Trump Term

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

CNN analyst and former FBI chief Andrew McCabe said Wednesday on CNN's "The Source" that people in the intelligence and law enforcement community were worried if former President Donald Trump is elected again, they will be "thrown in jail or grabbed in some sort of extra judicial detention."

The post McCabe: DOJ, FBI Folks Worried About Being Thrown in Jail in Second Trump Term appeared first on Breitbart.

Appeals Court Pauses Trump’s Georgia Case Until Decision on Fani Willis

The Georgia Court of Appeals officially put the racketeering case against former President Donald Trump on hold.

The appeals court ordered Judge Scott McAfee to pause all proceedings pending its coming ruling on the defendants’ bid to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case. McAfee previously allowed Willis to stay on the case despite finding “a significant appearance of impropriety” in her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who defendants allege she financially benefited from appointing.

dailycallerlogo

The appeals court agreed to take up the matter in May. It will hear oral arguments on Oct. 4.

NEW: Georgia Court of Appeals pauses Trump's case pending its decision on the Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis disqualification appeal. pic.twitter.com/0Qgs3XUdS2

— Katelynn Richardson (@katesrichardson) June 5, 2024

As a condition of allowing Willis to remain on the case, McAfee required Wade to step down. His ruling found “reasonable questions” about whether the pair testified truthfully about the timing of their relationship, which they claimed began after Wade was appointed.

Defendants argued in their appeal that disqualifying Wade was “is insufficient to cure the appearance of impropriety the Court has determined exists.”

Wade paid for expenses on multiple vacations he and Willis took together, bank statements revealed.

Both claimed during a hearing on the defense’s motion that Willis reimbursed him using cash stored in her house. Wade pointed to cash reimbursements as a reason he had only one receipt for a flight demonstrating she paid for any aspect of their travel together, which they said was “roughly divided equally.”

Willis paid Wade more than the state’s top racketeering expert John Floyd, awarding Wade a $250 per hour contract while Floyd was earning $200 an hour, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.

The original motion to disqualify Willis was filed by co-defendant Michael Roman in January.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post Appeals Court Pauses Trump’s Georgia Case Until Decision on Fani Willis appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Matthews: 'Reasonable to Assume' if Elected Trump Will Become a Dictator

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Long-time political commentator Chris Matthews said Wednesday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that it was "very reasonable to assume" former President Donald Trump will become a dictator if elected.

The post Matthews: ‘Reasonable to Assume’ if Elected Trump Will Become a Dictator appeared first on Breitbart.

‘Badfellas’: Joe Biden and Robert De Niro, 2 Raging Peas in a Pod

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to let Donald Trump turn America into a place that is filled with anger, resentment, and hate,” President Joe Biden said May 29 in Philadelphia.

So, why did America’s self-styled uniter-in-chief decide to “stop the shouting and lower the temperature”—as he promised in his inaugural address—by recruiting Robert De Niro, one of Hollywood’s loudest hotheads?

“Trump wants revenge, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it,” the veteran actor said as narrator of a Biden campaign ad released May 24. De Niro’s overheated audio track continues: “Now, he’s running again, this time threatening to be a dictator. To terminate the Constitution.” 

Biden could have tapped the suave and even-keeled George Clooney or the widely admired Julia Roberts, both talented supporters. Instead, Biden picked the boisterous, unhinged De Niro, whose comments about Trump slide from the vulgar to the violent.

On May 28, the Biden campaign staged a press conference outside the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building. Inside Room 1530 that morning, I was among those witnessing closing arguments in New York State vs. Donald J. Trump. Confirming suspicions that this bookkeeping-entry trial was a Democratic election-interference operation, like Trump’s other persecutions, De Niro and Biden-Harris 2024 Communications Director Michael Tyler stood before microphones and taunted Trump on one of the toughest days of his life.

“I don’t mean to scare you. No, wait, maybe I do mean to scare you,” De Niro said. “If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss these freedoms goodbye that we all take for granted … And elections. Forget about it. That’s over. That’s done. If he gets in. I can tell you right now. He will never leave.”

De Niro added, “Donald Trump wants to destroy not only the city, but the country, and, eventually, he could destroy the world.” (Funny: After Trump left office in January 2021, Americans’ freedoms and elections remained, and the rest of the Earth is still there.)

This disastrously misconceived stunt then melted down as local Trump fans defended the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and swapped insults with the two-time Academy Award winner, whose screen credits include “Goodfellas” and “Raging Bull.”

You’re trash! You’re done!” one man yelled at De Niro. Another screamed: “You ruined Leo DiCaprio!” 

“You are gangsters,” De Niro hollered back. “You are gangsters!”

This was not the first time that Biden’s new spokesman devolved into what the president decries as “anger, resentment, and hate.”

  • “He’s so f—ing stupid,” De Niro told ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel in March. “He’s a f—ing moron.”
  • While hosting the June 2018 Tony Awards, De Niro declared: “F— Trump.”
  • “He’s a punk. He’s a dog. He’s a pig,” De Niro ranted about Trump in a 2016 video for #VoteYourFuture. De Niro notoriously added: “I’d like to punch him in the face.”

But De Niro and Biden are not so far apart.

The warm, lovable Grandpa Lunchbucket Joe from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who Democrats showcased in 2020 was a mirage. Americans have learned the hard way that Biden is a nasty, vindictive man who lusts to imprison the leader of the opposition. Asked Friday at the White House about Trump’s charge that Biden had made him a political prisoner, Biden displayed an Arctic smile that seemed chilled by ice water in his arteries.

???Exclusive !!! The face of corruption. pic.twitter.com/IAvDv7X5ie

— Chris LaCivita (@LaCivitaC) May 31, 2024
  • Biden led a chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and left thousands of pro-American translators and other local allies to the Taliban’s tender mercies.
  • When the remains of 13 Americans killed in a suicide bombing returned home from Kabul, Biden repeatedly and coldly checked his watch, rather than focus exclusively on those fallen GIs’ flag-draped caskets.
  • After a massive train derailment, chemical spill, and conflagration plagued East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, 2023, residents waited for Biden to visit. And waited. And waited. The East Palestinians finally saw Biden last Feb. 16—fully 54 weeks into their long local nightmare. In contrast, Trump flew in to feel their pain just 19 days after their toxic hell exploded. 
  • Biden blames ongoing inflation not on his own reckless spend-aholism, but on “corporate greed.” So, U.S. companies generously kept inflation at 1.4% as Trump left office. But then they suddenly became gluttons and boosted overall prices by 19.87% over Biden’s first 39 months versus 5.58% for Trump’s equivalent interval?

Really? 

  • Unlike De Niro, Biden keeps his mouth clean in public. But off-camera, he is a bully who pummels staffers with foul language. In an article headlined, “Old Yeller: Biden’s Private Fury,” Axios’ Alex Thompson reported that the president explodes at White House aides. “G– d— it, how the f–k don’t you know this?” Biden demands. To others, he screams, “Get the f–k out of here!” 
  • Despite multiple death threats, two home-trespassing incidents, and an armed impostor’s arrest at a campaign event, Biden has rejected Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s five requests for Secret Service protection. Never mind that his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963, nor that his father was fatally shot in 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian-Jordanian infuriated by RFK’s “sole support of Israel,” as Sirhan told British newsman David Frost. (Sound familiar?) Nice guys don’t expose their competitors to the risk of killing in cold blood.

Biden, 81, and De Niro, 80, deserve each other. They are a pair of mean, cranky, decaying leftists who gush anger, resentment, and hate at their political opponents.

In a word: Badfellas.  

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post ‘Badfellas’: Joe Biden and Robert De Niro, 2 Raging Peas in a Pod appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Problem With ‘Our Democracy’

Earlier this year, Joe Biden’s campaign manager said, “We are running a campaign like the fate of our democracy depends on it.”

That’s a heady statement, but an intentional one. The president himself uses the term “our democracy” frequently, as do most progressive politicians and pundits as they wring their hands about the coming election.

Book titles such as “Reclaiming Our Democracy,” “The Future of Our Democracy,” and “Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy” are popping up increasingly as well.

A conspiracy? Doubtful. But neither is it merely coincidence.

According to Google’s Ngram Viewer, an online tool that searches historical sources to track word usage over time, only twice before has the term “our democracy” been in use more frequently than today: the late 1880s (around the time the Statue of Liberty was dedicated) and the late 1930s (during the height of the Great Depression and the onset of World War II).

Between 1950 and 1970, the term “our democracy” was rarely seen in print. But its usage has ratcheted up steadily since the Reagan Revolution began in 1981, and especially since 2000. It’s a development about which we all should be dubious.

I recall learning in 10th grade civics class (for readers born after 1980, that used to be a thing) that America is not a democracy, but a democratic republic. This is a distinction with a very clear difference, most notably the delegation by the people of various and vital public decisions to elected officials.

Although many will say that the term “our democracy” is an innocent shortcut, a catchall phrase for our nation specifically or rule by the people generally, the author of our Constitution would disagree. James Madison made clear in Federalist 14 that “under the confusion of names, it has been an easy task to transfer to a republic observations applicable to a democracy,” and that there are dangers in confounding the two.

Those dangers are manifest today. Progressives’ widespread and increasing use of this innocuous-sounding term is weakening our constitutional checks and balances and undermining the Bill of Rights, the only things standing in the way of what Madison called “the tyranny of the majority.”

Those who most traffic in the term wish to eliminate the Electoral College and reapportion the Senate by population rather than by state. They are working on multiple fronts to weaken First Amendment protections for speech and religion. They have long had the Second Amendment in their sights. And they consistently oppose individuals and organizations that push back against draconian federal restrictions such as public health lockdowns and climate change regulations.

If “our democracy” wants it, “our democracy” should get it, goes their reasoning, oblivious to Booker T. Washington’s admonition: “A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority.”

During this election cycle, however, progressives are putting “our democracy” to work in an even more pointed way. Like a magician using sleight of hand to distract his audience, they’re using the phrase to present a false binary to American voters. In sports, this is called “hiding the ball.”

Donald Trump, according to the Left, is an authoritarian who not only will take away our rights but eliminate elections. The charge is, of course, ridiculous—Trump stepped down despite his objections to the 2020 election results, and last I checked it’s his opponents who are using authoritarian tactics to ensure he doesn’t win reelection. But the charge is useful, which to a Marxist mind is all the justification it needs.

Contrasting the potential “autocracy” of a second Trump administration with Biden’s ostensible defense of “our democracy” is meant to distract us from recognizing the real decision that confronts the voters and the actual threat to our republic: the creeping totalitarianism of the administrative state.

Totalitarianism is defined as “subordination of the individual to the state and strict control of all aspects of the life and productive capacity of the nation, especially by coercive measures.” Ask anybody who lived through COVID-19 if that sounds familiar.

And if you visit Britannica.com—the modern iteration of the company whose encyclopedias we used in 10th grade civics class to learn about things like history and government—you’ll see a more expansive description:

Totalitarianism is a form of government that attempts to assert total control over the lives of its citizens. It is characterized by strong central rule that attempts to control and direct all aspects of individual life through coercion and repression. It does not permit individual freedom. Traditional social institutions and organizations are discouraged and suppressed, making people more willing to be merged into a single unified movement.

I could have sworn I heard something like that last line in a video at the 2012 Democratic National Convention: “Government is the only thing that we all belong to.”

Britannica goes on to say that it was Italian dictator Benito Mussolini who first used the term totalitario, meaning “all within the state, none outside the state, none against the state.” It cites as examples of totalitarian states not only Mussolini’s Italy but Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany, and Mao’s China.

Given the growth of the federal government over the past century, totalitarianism certainly represents a greater threat to the United States than authoritarianism.

We’re not there yet, and thanks to America’s exceptional institutions perhaps we won’t get there. But as the recent violent increase in antisemitism shows, something we thought could “never again” happen very well might—all it takes is one generation of historical ignorance.

Those same institutions that have protected us from anything approaching authoritarianism increasingly are becoming our totalitarian masters. As William F. Buckley once observed, it is the extent, not the source, of government power that impinges on freedom.”

Whenever you hear talking heads refer to “our democracy,” pay special attention to what comes next. Don’t assume they’re referring to the democratic republic handed down from our Founding Fathers or trying to preserve our Constitution and its safeguards.

More likely they’re taking advantage of our increasing historical ignorance resulting from the Left’s capture of our educational institutions (which was all part of the plan).

Let’s call our nation what it is: a republic. Whether out of ignorance or malevolence, saying “our democracy” is less likely to strengthen our heritage than seed our demise.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post The Problem With ‘Our Democracy’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Video: Kamala Harris Joins Biden Campaigner Jimmy Kimmel to Trash 'Cheater ' Trump

Vice President Kamala Harris joined Jimmy Kimmel Live Tonight late Tuesday in an effort to lay a proverbial blow on Donald Trump after his New York felony conviction on 34 counts, calling the former president a "cheater" undeserving of the highest office in the land.

The post Video: Kamala Harris Joins Biden Campaigner Jimmy Kimmel to Trash ‘Cheater ‘ Trump appeared first on Breitbart.

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Trump's Attorneys Request to Have Gag Order Lifted After Guilty Verdict, Before Presidential Debate

Former President Donald Trump's attorneys are requesting to have a gag order imposed on him during his business records trial lifted in the aftermath of his guilty verdict and ahead of a presidential debate at the end of June.

The post Trump’s Attorneys Request to Have Gag Order Lifted After Guilty Verdict, Before Presidential Debate appeared first on Breitbart.

Source: Biden’s Immigration Order Will Normalize 2 Million Migrant Entries Yearly

According to a senior-level Customs and Border Protection source, the latest executive order signed by President Biden on Tuesday will do little more than make Americans grow accustomed to more than 2 million migrant entries into the United States annually. The source, not authorized to speak to the media, says the order will do little to change the landscape of an out-of-control border even if legal challenges by pro-migrant civil rights groups fail to kill the order outright.

The post Source: Biden’s Immigration Order Will Normalize 2 Million Migrant Entries Yearly appeared first on Breitbart.

Wisconsin AG Charges 3 Trump Allies Over Alternate Electors Plot

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) filed charges against three allies of former President Donald Trump with charges related to an alternate electors plot.

The post Wisconsin AG Charges 3 Trump Allies Over Alternate Electors Plot appeared first on Breitbart.

Biden Claims He Can Do the Job of President 'Better than Anybody You Know'

President Joe Biden claimed he could do the job of president "better than anybody" when asked if he would be able to carry out the responsibilities of being president in his mid-80s.

The post Biden Claims He Can Do the Job of President ‘Better than Anybody You Know’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Donald Trump: 'I Am the Political Prisoner of a Failing Nation'

Former President Donald Trump described himself as being "the political prisoner of a failing nation," days after a Manhattan jury found him guilty in his business records trial.

The post Donald Trump: ‘I Am the Political Prisoner of a Failing Nation’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Tuberville on Trump Conviction: 'This Is a War on Our Constitutional Rights'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said Tuesday on Newsmax TV's "National Report" that former President Donald Trump’s conviction in his New York business record trial is a "war on our constitutional rights."

The post Tuberville on Trump Conviction: ‘This Is a War on Our Constitutional Rights’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Casinos, Strip Clubs, Fast Food: Addresses Listed for Battleground State Voters Prompt Concerns

Registered voters across the battleground state of Nevada registered in prison and at commercial addresses such as casinos, strip clubs, and fast-food restaurants—and an election watchdog group is pushing for action before mass mailing of ballots begins. 

Logan Churchwell, research director for Public Interest Legal Foundation, wrote Monday to Clark County Registrar of Voters Lorena S. Portillo, who oversees voter registration in Nevada’s largest jurisdiction, including Las Vegas. 

“In our analysis of Nevada’s statewide voter list dated April 9, 2024, we identified numerous addresses listed as residential that appeared to be commercial buildings where no one resides. Attached to this letter is a list of addresses from Clark County,” Churchwell wrote.

“We are including pictures that we have taken at each location along with additional information we collected,” he added in the letter to Portillo. “We request that you conduct your investigation and make any appropriate corrections to the voter roll by June 17, 2024.”

Public Interest Legal Foundation also posted a video on social media showing visits to numerous commercial locations where voters are listed as residing, only to find people unaware of the registered voter’s name. 

YouTube oddly posted a disclaimer under the video that says: “Mail ballots submitted by voters who meet eligibility and validity requirements are counted in every election. Before they are counted, election officials vigorously verify the validity of every mail ballot submission.” 

However, the point of the foundation’s video was to request that election officials verify the location of registered voters, then update voter lists accordingly.

“Ensuring the accuracy of the voter roll is especially critical given that Nevada has recently expanded voting by mail,” Churchwell’s letter to Portillo says.

As noted in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” jurisdictions across the United States have done a poor job of updating voter registration rolls in compliance with the federal National Voter Registration Act. This leads to the inclusion of dead voters or those who moved out of state remaining on voter lists in certain locations. 

The Clark County Registrar of Voters office didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on this report by publication time. 

Public Interest Legal Foundation has sued Washoe County, Nevada—which includes Reno—to force election officials to investigate commercial addresses on the voter lists. Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit. 

The document below includes evidence and a list of suspect addresses in Nevada compiled by Public Interest Legal Foundation.

The post Casinos, Strip Clubs, Fast Food: Addresses Listed for Battleground State Voters Prompt Concerns appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Poll: Donald Trump Leads Joe Biden in Michigan

Former President Donald Trump is leading President Joe Biden in Michigan, a recent survey from Mitchell Research found.

The post Poll: Donald Trump Leads Joe Biden in Michigan appeared first on Breitbart.

The Many Reasons You Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Question Election Results

It’s been said that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.

Most of us remember the national election of 2020: The COVID-19 pandemic, sudden changes to election procedures, mysterious mail-in ballots, allegedly hacked voting systems, and legions of lawyers filing scores of lawsuits.

I think we all remember the aftermath in 2021, as well. Thousands of angry conservative voters traveled to Washington, D.C., and entered the Capitol to protest the certification of the election after a surprise upset led to Joe Biden becoming the president.

Then came the speculation: Did the Chinese hack voting machines to flip the vote in favor of Biden? Were countless mail-in ballots shoved into voting machines in the dead of night?

Was Joseph R. Biden really the most popular presidential candidate in United States history even after running his entire campaign from a basement in Delaware?

I’ve prosecuted election fraud cases, but I do not know the answer to any of those questions. That’s not what this article is about. It is about why you should never be afraid to question the results of an election.

‘I’m Not a Conspiracy Theorist, But … ’

Having been in the Texas Attorney General’s Election Integrity Division, I have had more than a few conversations with people who almost seem to feel guilty about talking to me about election concerns. They usually start out with the other person saying, “Well, I’m not a conspiracy theorist but …”

That additional qualifier has never surprised me, considering how many risks there are associated with questioning the results of elections.  

The moment anyone is in the vicinity of someone who claims an election was stolen, they risk becoming an “election denier.”

A few notable attorneys who filed election contests have been threatened with losing their license to practice law and even imprisonment. More than 500 of the 1,265 people who were arrested after marching on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 are—more than three years later—still awaiting trial for what may ultimately amount to a misdemeanor conviction.

The rest of us are constantly told by “experts” that there was nothing wrong with the 2020 election.

But what if those experts were wrong?

Reprimanding Fulton County

Recently, the Georgia State Elections Board voted 2-1 to reprimand Fulton County after finding significant issues with the vote tally in the 2020 presidential election. The board’s investigation concluded there had been over 140 separate violations of election laws and rules not only related to how Fulton County tallied the initial vote, but also how it conducted its recount.

It should be noted that the only vote against reprimanding Fulton County was from board member Janice Johnston and that was only because she felt the reprimand didn’t go far enough. She wanted a more comprehensive investigation conducted by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office.

Out of a plethora of issues in how the election was conducted, the investigation also found that there were more than 3,000 duplicate ballots scanned during the recount. The Georgia Secretary of State’s general counsel declared that it’s inconclusive whether or how many of the 3,000 duplicates were included in the tabulated results.

There were also more than 17,000 ballot images that are allegedly missing from the recount. 

Keep in mind that Fulton County’s initial hand recount shortly after the election awarded 1,300 additional votes to Trump, and while the current numbers would not change the outcome of the election, an open question of whether there are potentially more than 4,000 votes not properly accounted for in a swing state election that was decided by only 11,000 votes is—to say the least—problematic.

The Georgia secretary of state’s position appears to be that the initial count, the hand recount, and the machine recount are all relatively similar and therefore not a cause for alarm. When Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was asked directly about allegations of election fraud, he said, “No, the numbers are the numbers … . The numbers don’t lie.” 

That seems like a difficult conclusion to reach when his organization seems to not be sure what the numbers are.

It also somehow seems worse to imply that more than 140 violations of election laws were committed by the election administrator’s office for the state’s most populated county by incompetence rather than malfeasance.

Compare Raffensperger’s lack of enthusiasm with the efforts to remove Sidney Powell’s law license, or the criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump currently pending in Fulton County, both of which stem from the actions they took (or are alleged to have taken) in response to issues arising out of the way Fulton County ran the 2020 presidential election.

In fact, the results of Georgia’s inquiry stand in contrast to the popular talking point that Trump’s allegations were so spurious that even individuals in his own administration refuted his claims of election irregularity.

Internal Dissenters’ Willful Blindness

For example, Christopher Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security, who claimed on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.”  

Not only does it now seem that Krebs was wrong, but less than a month after making that statement, it was publicly reported that Krebs and his agency had been unaware of what could be one of the largest cyberattacks of our national infrastructure in history.

There was also then-Attorney General Bill Barr publicly declaring on Dec. 1, 2020, that the Department of Justice and the FBI had not uncovered evidence of “widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the election”—after an investigation he had called for only three weeks prior.

In Texas, after we received an allegation of election fraud, our team of investigators and attorneys—who are already familiar with Texas election law—would seek to contact the election administrator for the county the allegation originated from to obtain their records of the election. Those records were often voluminous and would take time to review.

We would then make attempts to speak to witnesses, including the voters, to determine whether there had been fraud or irregularities in the voting process. We would investigate whether those who cast suspicious ballots were qualified to vote, whether they typically voted by mail or in person, whether their vote in that election came from their listed home address or somewhere else, whether they are even aware a vote was cast in their name, and sometimes even whether they are alive or deceased.

Consider that there were 81,139 votes—in Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona, combined—which separated Trump from Biden in the election. Among those four states, there were approximately 12,883,742 total ballots cast. Neither of those numbers would include instances where ballots had been destroyed.

The time it took for Georgia to issue its findings on Fulton County alone took three years. At the time of Barr’s statement, the FBI only had a total of 13,245 special agents in the entire bureau, spread out across the United States and other parts of the world. Even if the Justice Department devoted all its resources and limited the scope of their investigations to the largest counties of those four states, it would have taken several weeks just to compile evidence, much less come to a definitive conclusion just for one of those states.

There is also the question whether Barr even wanted the Department of Justice to be involved. The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, William McSwain, claimed that Barr told him to stand down on investigating election fraud allegations, instead ordering him to refer any complaints to the state of Pennsylvania.

While Barr disputes McSwain’s account, other witnesses testified under oath to receiving the same guidance.

In December 2020 an “irate” Bill Barr called investigators looking into Jesse Morgan’s claim of hundreds of thousands of completed mail-in ballots hauled across state lines to “STAND DOWN”

“‘I told you you need to stand down on this.’

“[He was] agitated, to say the least.” pic.twitter.com/orzqQFL245

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) April 4, 2024

So, when Barr said he had not seen evidence sufficient to conclude that fraud would have changed the results of the election, it seems that is exactly what he meant. He hadn’t seen fraud that would change the outcome. That would be difficult to find for someone unfamiliar with election fraud—and not interested in looking for it.

So-Called Fact-Checkers’ Echo Chamber

Nevertheless, Barr’s statements are a common talking point for media “fact-checkers,” who are adamant that election fraud is a myth.  

Take for example how fact-checkers handled allegations of Jesse Morgan. Morgan was a post office contractor who claimed that 288,000 pre-filled ballots had been shipped into the state of Pennsylvania in trailer that somehow mysteriously vanished after being delivered to a post office.

As a former prosecutor, the fact that the investigation by the U.S. Postal Service and the FBI only concluded that Morgan’s claims could not be corroborated, while Morgan himself was never charged with making a false statement to a federal agent seems to me to mean that the investigation was inconclusive. That is, neither confirming, nor denying his account.

If that’s the case, then we are left with the notion there is no security camera footage, records, manifests, receipts or explanation for a missing post-office trailer allegedly containing 288,000 ballots that was left inside a secured post-office motor pool, or that it was just a shoddy investigation.

That didn’t stop the Dispatch and PolitiFact from concluding that Morgan’s allegations were false in their entirety based on the aforementioned sound bite from Barr, and the Postal Service’s largely redacted report.

More dubious fact-checks come from The New York Times. It fact-checked 15 separate statements from Trump about the 2020 election. In the interest of brevity, I’d like to go summarize what I personally took from just a few:

  • Trump claimed surprise ballot dumps changed the outcome of the election overnight. The Times fact-checked this as false, because there were just a lot of mail-in ballots that took a long time to count.
  • Trump claimed mail-in ballots were a corrupt system. Times fact-checkers concluded this was false, because experts say voter fraud is rare.
  • Trump claimed the recount in Georgia was meaningless because there was no signature verification. The Times concluded this was also false, before oddly explaining how signatures cannot be verified during recounts because ballots are separated from the carrier envelope that contains the voter’s identifying information.
  • Trump claimed the Pennsylvania secretary of state and the state Supreme Court abolished signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots. The Times said this was misleading, because the Pennsylvania State Election Code never required signature verification in the first place.
  • Trump claimed that in Georgia only 0.5% of ballots were rejected in 2020 compared with 5.77% in 2016. The Times said that was also misleading, because the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believes the 5% total increase in accepted ballots was likely just due to the addition of a curing mechanism for Georgia mail-in ballots.

Other popular rebuttals stem from the 2020 election contests. The 2020 general election was easily the most litigated in my lifetime. According to some news outlets, Trump and Republicans filed over 60 election challenges, losing almost all of them.

The results of the 2020 election cases always seem to be the easy way out of any debate over the election results. Why wouldn’t they be? The judges found there was no election fraud. Case closed.

Except they kind of didn’t.

Democratic Operatives and the ‘Steele Dossier’

For background, a large bulk of the work against the 2020 presidential election contests was done by the law firm of Marc Elias. Formerly of Perkins-Coie, Elias is notably famous (or infamous) for his involvement with the entirely debunked opposition research against Trump known as the Steele Dossier. Ironically, Elias also thinks Russians intervened in the 2016 election to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In addition to being at the forefront of litigating election lawsuits on behalf of Democrats, Elias’ law firm also seeks “favorable advisory opinions” from the Federal Election Commission on behalf of Democratic candidates. They are unashamedly pro-Democrat, and to put it mildly, they are very committed to what they do.

Elias’ win record speaks for itself, and I’m not discounting his firm’s successes, but the 2020 general election was an easy playing field. In election contests, “the tie goes to the runner,” and all he and his team have to do to win is make sure that none of the allegations of fraud in any of the election contests are considered sufficient to warrant discounting the results.

This was made all the easier because judges have a hard time with any case involving an election.

Legal Timeliness and Standing

Take for example Trump v. Biden, where the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Trump’s suit was barred by the legal doctrine of laches. That is to say that Trump’s allegations were reasonable, but the case had been brought too late for courts to act.

To quote the court, “the time to challenge election policies such as these is not after all ballots have been cast and the votes tallied.”

Essentially, a candidate shouldn’t wait to get cheated out of an election before they sue over it.

A similar result occurred in Kistner v. Simon in Minnesota. In that case, the petitioners filed their lawsuit within days of the postelection review, but the court concluded two claims were barred as they should have been brought before the election, and for the third claim, the court found the petitioners failed to provide service to the other county officials required by Minnesota election laws.

In Arizona’s Ward v. Jackson, the Arizona Supreme Court classified instances where a “duplicate ballot did not accurately reflect the voter’s apparent intent as reflected in the original ballot” as a mere error, and held that it did not believe there were enough of these “errors” to overturn the results of the election.

Also stated by the court: “Where an election is contested on the ground of illegal voting, the contestant has the burden of showing sufficient illegal votes were cast to change the result.” It is not enough to prove there was fraud, you must prove there was enough fraud to change the outcome.

In Donald J. Trump for President v. Way, the New Jersey federal district court declined to hear a challenge to the New Jersey governor’s executive order No. 177, which directed the state to send mail-in ballots to all registered voters and extended ballot counting to all ballots received up to 48 hours after the polls closed on Election Day.

After the suit was filed, the Democrat-controlled state legislature passed a bill codifying the governor’s decree, thereby making it law. One of the bill’s co-sponsors allegedly claimed that the bill’s purpose was to “undermine the Trump campaign’s lawsuit.”

Changing the Rules in the Middle of the Game

The court’s ruling in that case was that it would defer to the state on whether to suddenly change election rules in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sidney Powell’s suit in Wisconsin, Feehan v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, was dismissed after the court ruled a Wisconsin voter and potential elector lacked standing to contest the election process in Wisconsin. The federal District Court of the Middle District of Pennsylvania came to the same conclusion in Donald J. Trump for President Inc. v. Boockvar. The result was the same in Nevada in Donald J. Trump for President Inc. v. Cegavske.

Also from Nevada is my favorite postelection opinion by far, Law, et al. v. Whitmer, et. al. In that case, the judge stated that he considered witness declarations—typically statements submitted under the penalty of perjury—to be “hearsay of little or no evidentiary value,” citing that per Nevada’s election code, election contests “shall be tried and submitted so far as may be possible upon depositions … .”

At the time of this suit, America was still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and many courts were not even permitting contested hearings out of fear that several people in an enclosed space listening to live testimony could spread the virus.

That prohibition often extended to requests to take someone’s deposition, which was a hurdle I ran into in some of my own cases. Before reading this opinion, I would have thought that “so far as may be possible” under those circumstances would be broad enough to increase the viability of sworn statements to be presented as evidence. I would have been wrong.

Considering the court’s order only gave the contestants from Nov. 17 to Dec. 3 to gather their evidence and granted only 15 depositions to both sides, it’s not clear what evidence the judge expected them to be able to marshal.

I’m not insinuating there was bias, but it feels that way, reading the 10 paragraphs devoted to just bolstering the credibility of the defense expert compared to the five paragraphs the judge spends on the why he felt the entirety of the evidence presented by the other side was inadequate.

Procedural vs. Evidentiary Reasons

The bottom line is, a significant number of the election challenges brought in 2020 appear to have been thrown out for procedural reasons, rather than evidentiary ones. In the few cases where election fraud was discussed, the courts seemed to consistently hold that those bringing the case hadn’t shown enough fraud.  Just don’t tell the fact-checkers at Reuters that.

Going into the election of 2024, it’s not even clear who will be able to successfully contest a national election. Neither voters nor electors appear to have standing to contest an election in their own state, and at least a state attorney general and House Representatives do not have standing to challenge elections in other states. 

Those who do make it past the standing requirement only have weeks to depose as many witnesses as it takes to prove that enough fraudulent ballots were counted to change the result of the election.

If you’re unfamiliar with an election case, that could potentially mean finding thousands of fraudulent ballots in less time than it would take to contest a speeding ticket. Good luck with that. 

The silver lining in all of this is that a byproduct of the controversies surrounding the 2020 presidential election is that we are at least talking about it. And the public outcry has been substantial.

Once a niche topic, election integrity is now at the forefront of public discourse, and several states—including Georgia—are engaged in massive undertakings to identify vulnerabilities in their electoral process and have already taken steps to pass new laws seeking to prevent election integrity issues.  

When Texas ran into hurdles with its high criminal court declaring it was unconstitutional for Attorney General Ken Paxton to unilaterally prosecute election fraud, the voters responded by voting out three of the eight justices who signed on to the opinion, and they were the only three up for reelection.

I do not know what happened in 2020, and I don’t know what’s going to happen in 2024. But I do know election fraud exists, and it has been around for a long time. So long as there are ways to cheat the system to obtain power, there will be people seeking to take advantage of them.

I also know that behind every successful election challenge, investigation, prosecution, and legislation are individuals courageous enough to come forward and question the results when something seems off.

That courage is becoming less and less rare after 2020, and it will be a force to be reckoned with in 2024.

That’s why I encourage everyone to never be afraid to question the results of an election when they see something suspicious, and act on those suspicions.  

Maybe you win, maybe you lose, but the only way it will change is if you’re not afraid to talk about it.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post The Many Reasons You Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Question Election Results appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Biden Attacks ‘Convicted Felon’ Trump: Declares ‘Something Snapped in This Guy for Real’

President Joe Biden attacked Donald Trump as a “convicted felon” in a vituperative campaign speech Monday night, declaring his “clearly unhinged” Republican rival somehow “snapped” in the wake of losing the 2020 election.

The post Biden Attacks ‘Convicted Felon’ Trump: Declares ‘Something Snapped in This Guy for Real’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Watch: Bill Maher Predicts Joe Biden 'Is Going to F***ing Lose'

Comedian Bill Maher made a bold prediction this week in the wake of former President Trump's guilty verdict, telling tech journalist Kara Swisher that Joe Biden is "going to f**king lose."

The post Watch: Bill Maher Predicts Joe Biden ‘Is Going to F***ing Lose’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Alyssa Farah Griffin: 'Silent Minority' Within GOP Doesn't Want Anything to Do with Trump

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Alyssa Farah Griffin told her co-hosts Monday on ABC's "The View" that there is a "silent minority" in the Republican Party of roughly 15% that do not want former President Donald Trump to be their presidential nominee.

The post Alyssa Farah Griffin: ‘Silent Minority’ Within GOP Doesn’t Want Anything to Do with Trump appeared first on Breitbart.

Democrat Jamie Raskin Refers to 'Convicted Felon' During Fauci Testimony

Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD) followed the strategy of the establishment media during Fauci's tesitmony, touting Trump as a "convicted felon," though without actually naming him.

The post Democrat Jamie Raskin Refers to ‘Convicted Felon’ During Fauci Testimony appeared first on Breitbart.

Migrant Apprehensions Drop to 118K in May -- 3rd Lowest Month in Biden Admin History

In the month leading up to Sunday's Mexican presidential election, migrant apprehensions along the U.S. southwestern border dropped to less than 118,000. This represents the third lowest month since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

The post Migrant Apprehensions Drop to 118K in May — 3rd Lowest Month in Biden Admin History appeared first on Breitbart.

Trump Lawyer: If Necessary We Will Take Conviction Appeal to Supreme Court

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Donald Trump's attorney Will Scharf said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that former President Donald Trump's legal team will appeal the former President's guilty verdict in the New York business document trial all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

The post Trump Lawyer: If Necessary We Will Take Conviction Appeal to Supreme Court appeared first on Breitbart.

Trump Vows to Fight On Despite Conviction

Shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday, a New York jury brought the country to an unprecedented brink by finding Donald Trump guilty of financial fraud, making the former president a convicted felon for now (unless or until the conviction is overturned on appeal) and making the upcoming election a referendum, he now hopes, not just on his record against Joe Biden’s but the entire political system.

Republicans call it a miscarriage of justice; for Democrats, it’s proof that no one is above the law.

History will remember it as a new chapter: Donald J. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime.

“We didn’t do anything wrong. I am a very innocent man,” Trump told reporters after the verdict, dressed in his trademark blue suit and too-long tie at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York.

Then a familiar script as the former president embraced martyrdom, arguing that his conviction was part of a larger war for the soul of a nation.

“I’m fighting for our country. I’m fighting for our Constitution,” he said. “Our whole country is being rigged right now.”

Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a case stemming from “hush money” payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign. Each count carries a maximum prison term of four years.

Sentencing is scheduled for July 11, just four days before Trump is slated to accept the Republican presidential nomination for a third consecutive time.

Although questions abound about the fate of the former president and the nation, there is little to no chance Trump will end up behind bars before the end of the year. He is expected to remain free on bail pending appeal, a process that is not likely to be exhausted until well after Election Day.

The case now shifts to the appellate courts—as well as the proverbial court of public opinion.

Democrats have been desperate to cast the election as a rematch of Biden v. Trump with an emphasis on character, not a judgment on President Joe Biden’s first term in office. They may have gotten what they wanted.

“Donald Trump is a racist, a homophobe, a grifter, and a threat to this country,” said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. “He can now add one more title to his list—a felon.”

Sources close to the former president prefer a different description.

A senior Trump campaign official predicted weeks before the decision that a conviction would “make him the Nelson Mandela of America,” comparing Biden to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his imprisonment of political rival and late dissident Alexei Navalny.

The framework suits Trump, who blasted out an email fundraiser shortly after his conviction calling himself “a political prisoner,” arguing both that “justice is dead in America” and “our country has fallen.”

This kind of rhetoric, complete with comparisons of the U.S. to the Third World, is likely to accelerate in the weeks and months ahead. Both major presidential campaigns now argue that the other could end democracy.

“These people would do anything and everything to hold onto political power. They don’t care if they destroy our country in the process,” said the former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

Martyrdom has been a central theme of Trump’s return to politics. After his indictment in New York last year, the GOP nomination was practically a fait accompli and his campaign nearly told RealClearPolitics as much at the time. It is unclear whether that phenomenon will translate to a general election.

Court has not crippled Trump so far, however, and Biden has not surpassed his rival a single time this year in the RealClearPolitics Average of polls. Well aware of those numbers, the Biden campaign attempted to tamp down jubilation on the left over the bad legal news consuming the right. They warned that Trump still could win.

“There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box,” said Biden-Harris communications director Michael Tyler.

Ian Sams, spokesman for the White House counsel’s office reacted to the news by saying only, “We respect the rule of law, and have no additional comment.” By remaining silent, however, he ceded the spotlight to Trump, allowing his rival to shape the first 24 hours of the narrative.

[Biden didn’t comment until early Friday afternoon, when he noted before turning to the Israel-Hamas war that, “just like everyone else,” Trump will have an opportunity to appeal the verdict. The president added: “That’s how the American system of justice works. And it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”]

Nothing bars Trump from running for president as a felon. It is unclear, however, if he will be able to cast a vote for himself while his case goes through the appeal process.

A more immediate consequence of the trial ending: Trump’s schedule just opened up, and Trump can return to the campaign trail in earnest.

Sources in regular contact with the former president report that the prospect of prison has not cast a shadow over Trump personally. One told RealClearPolitics that Trump “sincerely believes” that divine providence now guides his steps and “that he has been chosen for a time such as this.”

Trump has six months to convince the country to return him to the White House, and in the most extreme circumstance, to preserve his freedom. Republicans were as bullish over those odds as they were angry.

“Today’s verdict from this partisan, corrupt, and rigged trial just guaranteed Trump’s landslide victory on Nov. 5, 2024,” Mike Davis, founder and president of the pro-Trump Article III Project, told RealClearPolitics.

Former Rep. Peter Meijer, a Michigan Republican who voted to impeach Trump, echoed that sentiment, warning that a conviction would backfire on Democrats. “The chain reaction will cause infinitely more damage than whatever they think they are preventing,” he told RCP.

The conviction created a tidal wave of donations as Trump began fundraising almost immediately after leaving court. The Trump campaign buckled briefly at the surge. The fundraising website, WinRed, temporarily crashed under the strain of heavy traffic.

“I’ll lose friends for this,” wrote Shaun Maguire in a lengthy post on X announcing his $300,000 donation to Trump. A partner at Sequoia Capital and a former Democratic donor, Maguire said that “lawfare” in part inspired his donation:

“Fairness is one of my guiding principles in life,” he said, “and simply, these cases haven’t been fair for Trump.”

Following the conviction, there was a discernable shift on the right among conservatives who normally argue that the judicial system ought to remain apolitical. Some Trump allies described the guilty verdict as “the Rubicon.”

Asked about the new Republican appetite to use the courts to go after political opponents, Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller told RCP that “the good guys must be as tough as the villains or freedom is doomed.”

The field of potential vice presidential candidates snapped to attention in their immediate condemnation of the conviction.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the verdict was “a complete travesty that makes a mockery of our system of justice.” Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, called it “election interference.” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said it was an “absolute injustice” that “erodes our justice system.”

“From the start, the weaponized scales of justice were stacked against President Trump. Joe Biden, far left Democrats, and their stenographers in the mainstream media have made it clear they will stop at nothing to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., in a lengthy statement to reporters.

“This lawfare should scare every American,” said a more succinct North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican. “The American people will have their say in November.”

The safest thing for any Republican elected official anywhere Thursday night was to attack the judicial system. Defending that institution, meanwhile, was verboten.

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a frequent Trump critic now running for Senate, appeared to miss the memo when he shared a statement calling for GOP leaders to “reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.”

Replied Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump adviser dispatched to oversee the Republican National Conventio: “You just ended your campaign.”

The most common sentiment among Trump’s close circle of advisers and friends was that something had changed permanently, not in the former president personally but in the country.

“Today marks a turning point,” said Brooke Rollins, who led Trump’s Domestic Policy Council before launching the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank often described as a Trump White House in waiting. “I see it as a fire that has been lit. I see the sleeping giant of the American people awakened.”

On the second day of jury deliberations, Trump had kept up appearances with a smile. A verdict was not expected Thursday, and by the afternoon, Judge Juan Merchan was preparing to dismiss the jury for the day.

The foreman replied instead that the jury had reached a verdict. He read each of the 34 charges and followed by a one-word pronouncement: “guilty.”

A smile turned to a grimace, and Trump, surrounded by his defense team, stared forward stone-faced as he listened to the verdict and American history. He vowed in brief remarks to reporters afterward that he would “fight till the end and we’ll win because our country’s gone to hell.”

It was like so many of the pronouncements he has made after so many of the other controversies that have defined his political life. It was also different. A loss, if the conviction stands, could mean prison.

Rollins predicted that Trump would persevere, as he has before.

“From my perspective,” she said, “it is almost biblical to see this sort of courage and leadership and unwillingness to back down even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.”

The post Trump Vows to Fight On Despite Conviction appeared first on The Daily Signal.

CNN's Begala: Trump Is an 'Obese Flatulent Old Man with Bad Makeup and Weird Hair'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

CNN analyst Paul Begala said Friday on "News Central" that Donald Trump is an "obese flatulent old man with bad makeup and weird hair" when asked for his reaction to the former president's conviction at the business record trial in New York.

The post CNN’s Begala: Trump Is an ‘Obese Flatulent Old Man with Bad Makeup and Weird Hair’ appeared first on Breitbart.

The Many Ways Biden Doesn’t Measure Up

The story of America is scrappy, daring, and revolutionary. Our Founding Fathers took an idea—democracy—that had been dead for centuries and revived it with little more than an amateur militia and a dream for a better world. 

The great American experiment has been led by consequential presidents. They were warriors, leaders, and titans. Some of them, like Abraham Lincoln, literally stood above the crowds with imposing height. Military heroes such as Ulysses S. Grant and Teddy Roosevelt had the kind of courage you only read about today.

Thomas Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence. Ronald Reagan, an actor before entering the political sphere, pioneered conservative policies and paved the way for the modern conservative movement. 

From innovators, thinkers and writers to generals, orators, and businessmen, the presidency of the United States used to be a job that attracted the best of the best. 

Fast-forward to 2024. America’s president is the butt of jokes around the world. President Joe Biden gets lost on stage, forgets what he’s saying in the middle of a sentence, and bears little resemblance to the charming “Uncle Joe” that many Americans admired during the Obama administration. 

Adding insult to injury, the Biden administration makes wrong decision after disastrously wrong decision. It’s been four years of failure and intentionally destructive policies. 

To put it plainly, Biden does not measure up to the legendary presidents of American history. 

Just this week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre admitted from the podium that the Biden administration could take executive action to fix the border crisis, but it won’t. In fact, she bragged about the executive actions Biden took early in his presidency to destroy the progress of President Donald Trump‘s administration.

Biden stumbled through nine errors in a recent speech that White House staff had to clean up afterward. 

Biden’s White House issued condolences for the death of the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi—a man nicknamed the “Butcher of Tehran” for his human rights abuses and whose leadership led to a rise in terrorism and instability in the Middle East. 

In another gaffe, Biden claimed to have been vice president during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also gave some bizarre marital advice: Marry a woman with a lot of sisters. He incorrectly announced that a person being held hostage by Hamas terrorists since Oct. 7 was in the crowd at an event. 

He repeatedly stumbles up the stairs of Air Force One. He slips and falls on stage. He crashed his bike while riding at a slow pace. He reads aloud, with squinting eyes, the speech cues on his teleprompter.

He tells strange, inconsistent, and false stories about vague family members and friends. 

Rather than cause alarm, Biden’s gaffes have become a punch line for late-night television. Hollywood brushes it off. Mainstream media happily provides him cover. 

Unlike the media elites, the American people are horrified. They don’t think that Biden is truly capable of running the country. The chaos erupting around the world—in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Israel, and Taiwan, to name a few—doesn’t calm any of those fears. 

Biden is a liability on the campaign trail—and his team knows it. That’s why they’re trying so hard to keep Trump tied up in court, because when you put these two side by side, there’s no comparison. 

The president shouldn’t be a punch line. He’s the most powerful person on the planet and leader of the free world. Presidents are supposed to inspire hope; they don’t hide in a basement. 

The upcoming debates between Biden and Trump will make the choice explicitly clear. 

When Americans head to the polls on Nov. 5, they will be reminded of the American presidents who have changed the course of history, some for better and others for worse. 

Our great American revival can only happen when we embrace true leadership and put America first. Our next president must bring us closer to the promise of “E Pluribus Unum”—out of many, one.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post The Many Ways Biden Doesn’t Measure Up appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Raskin: Pro-Trump Republicans 'Surrender Critical Thinking Skills'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that former President Donald Trump's supporters were "perfectly willing to surrender critical thinking skills."

The post Raskin: Pro-Trump Republicans ‘Surrender Critical Thinking Skills’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Mark Levin: 'Democrat Party Has Completely Destroyed Our Electoral System'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Conservative talker Mark Levin said Friday on FNC's "Fox & Friends" that the Democratic Party has completely destroyed our electoral system when reacting to former President Trump's felony conviction.

The post Mark Levin: ‘Democrat Party Has Completely Destroyed Our Electoral System’ appeared first on Breitbart.

J.D. Vance: What Happened in New York Trump Trial the 'Definition of Fascism'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) said Friday on CNN's "Inside Politics" that what happened in former President Donald Trump's New York City business record trial was the "definition of fascism."

The post J.D. Vance: What Happened in New York Trump Trial the ‘Definition of Fascism’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Trump Campaign Gets Immediate Avalanche of Cash After Guilty Verdict

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign donation page crashed Thursday within minutes of the jury returning a guilty verdict.

Shortly after the verdict, the page displayed a 500 error stating “something went wrong.” Trump also received massive influxes of cash from major donors after the verdict, including $300,000 from Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire.

dailycallerlogo

“The timing isn’t a coincidence,” Maguire wrote on X. In the past, Sequoia Capital employees have donated to both the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee, as well as the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project, according to Open Secrets.

Trump’s campaign wrote on X that “the American people see through Crooked Joe Biden’s rigged show trial.”

“So many Americans were moved to donate to President Trump’s campaign that the WinRed pages went down,” the campaign said.

I just donated $300k to President Trump

The timing isn't a coincidence https://t.co/LDU4nJ8FBx

— Shaun Maguire (@shaunmmaguire) May 30, 2024


The jury convicted Trump on all 34 counts of falsifying business records charged in the indictment brought by Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump is set to be sentenced on July 11. 

WEBSITE IS BACK ONLINE!https://t.co/KojPKxsxaD https://t.co/LylEZV7zJb

— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) May 30, 2024

New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin also wrote on X after the verdict that he just “secured a $800k donation from someone for President Trump’s Joint Fundraising Committee.”

“Never experienced a massive ask that easy,” he wrote.

The Trump campaign and WinRed did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post Trump Campaign Gets Immediate Avalanche of Cash After Guilty Verdict appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Adam Schiff -- Client of Judge Merchan’s Daughter -- Begins Raising Money off Trump Verdict

California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, a top client of Trump Trial Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter Loren Merchan, immediately began trying to raise money off of the guilty verdict against the former president.

The post Adam Schiff — Client of Judge Merchan’s Daughter — Begins Raising Money off Trump Verdict appeared first on Breitbart.

No Surrender: Major GOP Donors Rally Behind Trump, Pledge Millions After Guilty Verdict

A host of major GOP donors pledged millions of dollars in support Thursday for former President Donald Trump after he was found guilty on all 34 counts in his Manhattan business records trial.

The post No Surrender: Major GOP Donors Rally Behind Trump, Pledge Millions After Guilty Verdict appeared first on Breitbart.

Legal Experts After Trump Guilty Verdict: Election Will Decide the Outcome

Following the "Guilty" verdict against former President Donald Trump in Manhattan on Thursday, legal experts have been weighing in, with some saying that the conviction will be overturned, while others have been saying the coming election in November will be the final arbiter.

The post Legal Experts After Trump Guilty Verdict: Election Will Decide the Outcome appeared first on Breitbart.

Jim Jordan: Trump's 'Kangaroo Court' Verdict Is 'Travesty of Justice'

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) blistered a Manhattan verdict after the jury in former President Donald Trump’s business records trial reportedly found him guilty on all 34 counts.

The post Jim Jordan: Trump’s ‘Kangaroo Court’ Verdict Is ‘Travesty of Justice’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Biden Campaign Cheers Trump Verdict

The Biden campaign is cheering the guilty verdict of former President Donald Trump in New York today in his business records case, the merits of which have been widely questioned by legal scholars and experts.

The post Biden Campaign Cheers Trump Verdict appeared first on Breitbart.

GOP's Online Donation Platform Overwhelmed After Trump's Guilty Verdict

Republicans' online donation website was so overwhelmed in the minutes after a Manhattan jury found Donald Trump guilty that its functionality was incapacitated.

The post GOP’s Online Donation Platform Overwhelmed After Trump’s Guilty Verdict appeared first on Breitbart.

Democrats, Media Hype Trump as a 'Convicted Felon'

Democrats and the leftist media are now hyping former President Donald Trump as a  convicted felon following a Manhattan jury finding him guilty on all 34 counts in his business records trial.

The post Democrats, Media Hype Trump as a ‘Convicted Felon’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Donald Trump: 'Real Verdict Is Going to Be November 5 by the People'

The "real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people," former President Donald Trump reacted to Thursday's verdict, which found him guilty on all 34 counts in his criminal trial in Manhattan.

The post Donald Trump: ‘Real Verdict Is Going to Be November 5 by the People’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Rachel Maddow: Trump Jury Should Be Thanked, Protected

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow said the jury should be thanked and protected during her network's coverage of former President Donald Trump being found guilty on all counts in a unanimous decision by a Manhattan jury in his business record trial.

The post Rachel Maddow: Trump Jury Should Be Thanked, Protected appeared first on Breitbart.

VIDEO: Mexican Mayoral Candidate Gunned Down During Campaign Event

A gunman shot and killed a Mexican mayoral candidate as he was about to take the stage during a campaign event in the coastal state of Guerrero. The murder comes amidst one of Mexico's bloodiest election cycles, with at least 36 candidates murdered and over 300 political attacks in a span of less than a year.

The post VIDEO: Mexican Mayoral Candidate Gunned Down During Campaign Event appeared first on Breitbart.

Jill Biden Agrees Trump 'Can't Put a Sentence Together'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

First Lady Jill Biden said Wednesday on ABC's "The View" that co-host Joy Behar was correct in claiming former President Donald Trump cannot put a sentence together.

The post Jill Biden Agrees Trump ‘Can’t Put a Sentence Together’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Jill Biden: Americans Will Choose 'Good' Biden over 'Evil' Trump

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

First Lady Jill Biden said Wednesday on ABC's "The View" that American voters will choose "good" President Joe Biden over "evil" former President Donald Trump.

The post Jill Biden: Americans Will Choose ‘Good’ Biden over ‘Evil’ Trump appeared first on Breitbart.

Trump Vows: I Will Rip Up, Throw Away WHO Pandemic Agreement

Former President Donald Trump has put the issue of world government at the forefront of the 2024 presidential race, vowing to “protect American sovereignty” and the U.S. Constitution from the designs of unelected global bureaucrats.

Trump took aim at global governance institutions in general, and the World Health Organization specifically, on Saturday, promising to shred and annul the WHO Pandemic Agreement unless President Joe Biden submits the document to the U.S. Senate for ratification, as required for treaties.

“As we speak, Joe Biden’s minions are in Geneva, secretly negotiating to surrender more of our liberty to the World Health Organization,” Trump told the Libertarian National Convention, eliciting a fulsome chorus of boos. “Drafts of the agreement show that they want to subjugate America to foreign nations, attack free speech, [and] empower the World Health Organization to redistribute American resources.”

Multiple drafts of the proposed accord show the WHO limiting national sovereignty by demanding nations follow its regulations on “routine immunization” and “social measures,” turn over 20% of all vaccines for global redistribution, and abide by the agreement’s terms even after they withdraw.

“They’re going to take our money and send it all over the world to other countries that we need for our own citizens,” in the event of a pandemic, Trump told the crowd in Washington on Saturday, warning that a pandemic “could happen again” in the United States.

His comments came just days after the Department of Health and Human Services took the first steps to deny future federal grants to the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization that funded gain-of-function research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I will protect American sovereignty from the creeping hands of global government,” promised Trump.

By contrast, the Biden administration has signaled its desire to sign the agreement, which WHO downgraded from a “legally-binding treaty” after Biden realized the U.S. Senate would never ratify the controversial document.

“I am hereby demanding that Joe Biden submit these monstrosities to the Senate as treaties,” declared Trump on Saturday. “If he does not, I will rip them up and throw them out on Day One of the Trump administration.”

Opposition to the WHO pandemic treaty-turned-agreement has spread throughout America, including all 49 Republican U.S. senators, two dozen Republican governors, and 22 state attorneys general.

“The globalists are making a run over American sovereignty,” said Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., on the most recent episode of “This Week on the Hill,” hosted by Tony Perkins. “We can’t allow these global organizations to dictate to us what our policy is going to be.”

Although the body tasked with drawing up the agreement, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body, failed to finalize its text before the World Health Assembly commenced its annual meeting in Geneva on Monday, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus insisted the globalists would eventually prevail. “I remain confident that you still will” complete the global power transfer and have it adopted, he told delegates Monday. “Where there is a will, there is a way.” 

But the internationalists compiling the sovereignty-destroying agreement will proceed from a radically government-centered philosophy alien to the American founding, experts say.

“Some of these nations come from a very different governance perspective than the United States,” one which “says it’s normal to look to the federal government to deal with these problems,” Travis Weber, vice president for policy and government affairs at Family Research Council—who is currently in Geneva monitoring the World Health Assembly proceedings—told guest host and former Rep. Jody Hice on “Washington Watch” Tuesday.

“Constitutionally, there are areas enumerated to the federal government under our Constitution. If they’re not, the issue in theory should be left to the states,” Weber told Hice. “We have a philosophy of government going back to our founding which depends on a self-governing, moral, and religious people. So, this really sets the stage for people in the United States to say, ‘Why should the federal government be tackling [this] issue in the first place?’”

Trump also cited constitutionalist themes in his pitch for libertarians to endorse his candidacy at Saturday’s convention.

“I unbound the United States from globalist agreements that surrendered our sovereignty. I withdrew from the Paris accord. I withdrew from the anti-gun U.N. arms treaty. And I withdrew from the corrupt and very expensive World Health Organization,” said Trump, emphasizing that any institution of global governance is “not a good thing, not a good thing.”

Trump delivered a message precision-targeted to libertarian concerns. “Marxism is an evil doctrine straight from the ashes of hell,” said Trump. “We believe that the job of the United States military is not to wage endless regime change wars around the globe.”

“We will shut down our out-of-control federal Department of Education and give it back to the states and local governments. I will return power to the states, local governments, and to the American people. I am a believer in the 10th Amendment,” said Trump. “I will always defend religious liberty and the right to keep and bear arms. And I will secure our elections.”

Trump also pledged to put a libertarian in his Cabinet and in senior posts of his administration.

“What you’re witnessing under Biden is a toxic fusion of the Marxist Left, the deep state, the military-industrial complex, the government security and surveillance service, and their partners all merging together into a hideous perversion of the American system,” he said.

Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle also invited Biden and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to address the convention. RFK Jr., who has said the WHO Pandemic Agreement “should be dead in the water,” delivered extended remarks to the delegates Friday afternoon. Biden demurred. Former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, former Rep. Ron Paul, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also spoke at the convention.

Trump vied for the party’s backing, quoting at length a Deroy Murdock article, “The Libertarian Case for Donald J. Trump,” and encouraging delegates to nominate him—but only “if you want to win. If you want to lose, don’t do that. Keep getting your 3% every four years.”

The 3.3% of the 2016 vote, won by former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican, actually represented an outlier for the Libertarian Party, which typically claims to 0.5%-1% of the presidential electorate.

Ultimately, the collected Libertarian Party delegates nominated Chase Oliver, an Atlanta-based activist who describes himself as “pro-police reform, pro-choice,” as well as “armed and gay.”

Oliver supported COVID-19 lockdowns and mask mandates, opposed bills protecting minors from transgender injections and surgeries, and posed with a drag queen. The Georgian, who forced a runoff in the 2022 Senate race that saw Democrat Raphael Warnock defeat Republican Herschel Walker, plans to gear his campaign toward young people, “in particular those who are upset with the war going on in Gaza.”

Some hope liberty-minded voters will ignore the Libertarian Party’s official endorsement and support Trump out of prudence. Walter Block, an economics professor and prolific libertarian author, urged libertarians in swing states to vote for the 45th president this November. “In Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, we could make the difference,” wrote Block in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Tuesday.

He reminded readers that “Libertarian nominee Jo Jorgensen received roughly 50,000 votes in Arizona in 2020, when Mr. Trump lost the state by about 10,000 ballots.”

Absent a more conservative government, America may be yoked to the WHO Pandemic Agreement without Senate ratification, circumventing the democratic process.

“It only breeds more public distrust when people are not able to fully share their concerns and air their grievances,” Weber told Hice. “The people of the United States need to be heard in terms of their concerns about the WHO, about the way the COVID-19 pandemic was handled, about the way their health information might be distributed or shared, or given over to some government program.”

Originally published by The Washington Stand

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Report: One Juror Appears Sympathetic to Donald Trump

One juror who listened for 6 weeks to the evidence presented in a courtroom against Donald Trump reportedly appears sympathetic towards him.

The post Report: One Juror Appears Sympathetic to Donald Trump appeared first on Breitbart.

Top Democrat Official in Michigan Battleground County Refuses to Back Biden

President Joe Biden will not have the support of the top Democrat official in a key Michigan swing county this election cycle, underscoring enthusiasm problems for Biden within his own party less than six months before the election.

The post Top Democrat Official in Michigan Battleground County Refuses to Back Biden appeared first on Breitbart.

DNC Planning to Virtually Nominate Joe Biden Before Convention

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is planning to virtually nominate President Joe Biden as the party's presidential nominee ahead of their convention in August.

The post DNC Planning to Virtually Nominate Joe Biden Before Convention appeared first on Breitbart.

Meacham Derides Trump Supporters; Claims They Suspend Reason, History, Custom and Values

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Historian Jon Meacham said on Tuesday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that former President Donald Trump supporters suspend reason, history, customs, and values in voting for him.

The post Meacham Derides Trump Supporters; Claims They Suspend Reason, History, Custom and Values appeared first on Breitbart.

Nolte: 54% of DEMOCRATS Want Joe Biden Replaced as 2024 Nominee

When asked if they would like Democrats to replace Joe Biden with another candidate in November, 54 percent of Democrats — Democrats — said yes.

The post Nolte: 54% of DEMOCRATS Want Joe Biden Replaced as 2024 Nominee appeared first on Breitbart.

Donna Edwards Says Trump Doesn't Have the Same 'Juice' — Trial Taking a 'Toll'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Former Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) said Monday on MSNBC's "Chris Jansing Reports" that former President Donald Trump doesn't have the same '"juice" because the New York business record trial was taking a toll on him.

The post Donna Edwards Says Trump Doesn’t Have the Same ‘Juice’ — Trial Taking a ‘Toll’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Libertarian Party Chooses Nominee Who Supports Open Borders, Drag Queen Story Hour

The Libertarian Party chose its nominee for president -- a gay man who has a history of leftist positions and supports an open border and Drag Queen Story Hour for children.

The post Libertarian Party Chooses Nominee Who Supports Open Borders, Drag Queen Story Hour appeared first on Breitbart.

Openly Gay Former Obama Supporter Picked for Libertarian Party Presidential Nominee

Chase Oliver, an openly gay former supporter of former President Barack Obama, was picked to be the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee in the upcoming presidential election. After hours of voting, Oliver, a former Georgia Senate candidate, advanced to the final

The post Openly Gay Former Obama Supporter Picked for Libertarian Party Presidential Nominee appeared first on Breitbart.

WATCH: Donald Trump Cheered at NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600

Donald Trump is known for his ability to make an entrance, and he did not disappoint on Sunday as his plane touched down near the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The post WATCH: Donald Trump Cheered at NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 appeared first on Breitbart.

Patrick Kennedy Endorses Joe Biden for President over Cousin RFK JR.

Former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D) endorsed President Joe Biden in the upcoming 2024 presidential election over his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate.

The post Patrick Kennedy Endorses Joe Biden for President over Cousin RFK JR. appeared first on Breitbart.

CNN's Bedingfield Claims Trump Got 'Macheted' at Libertarian Convention

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Former Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield claimed Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that former President Donald Trump was "macheted" during his appearance at the Libertarian National Convention on Saturday.

The post CNN’s Bedingfield Claims Trump Got ‘Macheted’ at Libertarian Convention appeared first on Breitbart.

AZ Sec of State Fontes: Threats Against Elections Officials Is 'Domestic Terrorism'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Democrat Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that threats to election officials were "domestic terrorism."

The post AZ Sec of State Fontes: Threats Against Elections Officials Is ‘Domestic Terrorism’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Carville: 'Democrat Messaging Is Full of Sh-t' Stop Ignoring the Economy

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Democratic strategist James Carville said on the Politicon podcast that Democrats are losing younger voters and black voters because they were ignoring the economy.

The post Carville: ‘Democrat Messaging Is Full of Sh-t’ Stop Ignoring the Economy appeared first on Breitbart.

Tim Scott: Alvin Bragg Is Guilty of 'Trying to Frame' Trump

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was guilty of trying to frame former President Donald Trump.

The post Tim Scott: Alvin Bragg Is Guilty of ‘Trying to Frame’ Trump appeared first on Breitbart.

Report: 'Scranton Joe' Biden's Troubles in Pennsylvania Perplex Democrats

President Joe Biden, also known as "Scranton Joe" has been facing troubles, consisting of low support and enthusiasm from Democrat voters in Pennsylvania, leaving Democrat officials perplexed.

The post Report: ‘Scranton Joe’ Biden’s Troubles in Pennsylvania Perplex Democrats appeared first on Breitbart.

Marlow on Kudlow: 'Democrats are Jealous' Trump Turned Out Thousands of Voters in the Bronx

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Breitbart editor-in-chief and New York Times bestselling Breaking Biden author Alex Marlow said Friday on Fox Business Network's "Kudlow" that the "Democrats are jealous" former President Donald Trump turned out thousands of supporters at a rally in the Bronx borough of New York City.

The post Marlow on Kudlow: ‘Democrats are Jealous’ Trump Turned Out Thousands of Voters in the Bronx appeared first on Breitbart.

Bronx Resident Praises Trump for Visiting 'the Hood’: 'I Respect That'

A Bronx resident praised former President Donald Trump for visiting "the hood," saying it was "great" that Trump chose to hold a rally there.

The post Bronx Resident Praises Trump for Visiting ‘the Hood’: ‘I Respect That’ appeared first on Breitbart.

NY Gov. Hochul: Trump Wasting Time in NYC While Biden Winning over Battleground States

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Hochul said, "Well I'll tell you, what won't make a difference at all Jake, and that is for Donald Trump to be the ringleader and invite all his clowns to a place like the Bronx. New York will never, ever support Donald Trump for president."

The post NY Gov. Hochul: Trump Wasting Time in NYC While Biden Winning over Battleground States appeared first on Breitbart.

Exclusive – Robert O'Brien: Israel Shares Our Values, Trump’s Election ‘Critical’ for Security, Freedom

Israel shares our values, and those who attacked her “attacked us,” according to former Trump National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien, who warned that if “we don't protect American strength abroad, we're going to lose our freedom” and, therefore, putting former President Donald Trump back in power is “critical.” 

The post Exclusive – Robert O’Brien: Israel Shares Our Values, Trump’s Election ‘Critical’ for Security, Freedom appeared first on Breitbart.

Up to 2.7 Million Noncitizens Could Vote Illegally in November, Study Warns

A new study has revealed that roughly 10% to 27% of noncitizens living in the U.S. are illicitly registered to vote, which could result in up to 2.7 million illegal votes being cast in the November elections.

Experts say the significant amount of potential illegal votes could be enough to alter election results.

The study, released last week by the research institute Just Facts, notes that the 2022 U.S. census recorded approximately 19 million adult noncitizens living in the country. “Given their voter registration rates, this means that about 2 million to 5 million of them are illegally registered to vote,” the report observes. “These figures are potentially high enough to overturn the will of the American people in major elections, including congressional seats and the presidency.”

On Tuesday, James Agresti, president of Just Facts, joined “Washington Watch” to discuss the scope of noncitizens casting ballots and the implications of the study’s findings.

“[T]here are very broad openings for noncitizens to vote,” he explained, adding:

In no state in the nation are they required to provide proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote. Now, a couple of states like Arizona tried to enact that requirement, but they were blocked by a court ruling supported by the Obama administration.

And if you look at the federal voter-registration form, it says you can submit all different forms of ID to register. That could be a Social Security number; it could be a driver’s license number; or it could just be a utility bill.

I mean, these are things that anyone can get by living here. They do not prove you’re a U.S. citizen.

And more than that, a lot of noncitizens have faked Social Security numbers, especially illegal immigrants. That’s what they do to work. A recent estimate by the Social Security Administration tallied 2.5 million noncitizens who had Social Security numbers gained by using fake birth certificates or stealing those numbers from somebody else.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and board member of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, concurred. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)

“[T]he problem is, states aren’t doing very much to verify citizenship, so it’s extremely easy for someone who’s not a citizen to register to vote and to vote in elections,” he remarked during Monday’s edition of “Washington Watch.”

“And when that is discovered, oftentimes nothing is done about it.”

Agresti went on to point out the effect that lax enforcement of citizen verification could have in November. “[B]ased on the latest available data, approximately 1 million to 2.7 million noncitizens are going to vote in the upcoming presidential election unless something changes. And that is more than enough to tip the results of congressional races, Senate races, and yes, the U.S. presidency.”

Von Spakovsky echoed Agresti’s concerns. “[I]t doesn’t matter whether they’re black or white, Asian or Hispanic. It doesn’t matter which political party they support. Every time an alien illegally votes, that alien is voiding, negating the vote of a citizen, no matter which political party they support,” he contended. “And the Democrats just don’t seem to want to understand that or to basically ignore it.”

Agresti further reflected on the motivations behind the Democrats’ opposition to efforts to improve election integrity.

“[I]t’s always hard to read people’s minds, but I can tell you this: The vast bulk of these noncitizens are voting for Democrats. According to the best data we have, about 80% of them will vote for Democrats when they vote illegally. And Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to prevent any kind of checking of people’s citizenship. It does benefit them. Is that their reasoning? It’s an obvious incentive, but I can’t read their minds.”

Earlier this month, House Republicans attempted to address the issue by introducing a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and would remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls. But Agresti expressed doubt about the bill’s chances of passage. “My guess is it will move in the House and die in the Senate, but that’s just an educated guess. And again, even if somehow it got through the Senate, there’s no way [President] Joe Biden’s signing that bill.”

“However,” he added, “I do think in the aftermath of the election, and we hate to have a repeat of 2020, that there should be some accountability, some lawsuits that demand proof that people are who they say they are in tight races. None of that was secured in the last round of election lawsuits, and it needs to be there.”

Agresti concluded by urging candidates involved in tight elections to demand verification that only citizens voted. “A candidate has to make a plea and say, ‘Hey, I want this data to prove that these people who are registered and voted actually are citizens.’”

Originally published at WashingtonStand.com

The post Up to 2.7 Million Noncitizens Could Vote Illegally in November, Study Warns appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Speaker Johnson: 'Sinister' Dems Want to Turn Illegal Immigrants Into Voters

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Thursday on Fox News Channel's "The Faulkner Focus " that President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party want open borders to "turn these people into voters and change the outcome of the census is six years."

The post Speaker Johnson: ‘Sinister’ Dems Want to Turn Illegal Immigrants Into Voters appeared first on Breitbart.

Kinzinger Dismisses Haley’s Support for Trump as ‘Pathetic’

Former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley was dismissed as "pathetic" for saying Wednesday she plans to support former President Donald Trump over President Joe Biden in the general election come November, with erstwhile Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) delivering the character appraisal.

The post Kinzinger Dismisses Haley’s Support for Trump as ‘Pathetic’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Trump, Biden, and CNN: What to Know About the First Presidential Debate

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are scheduled to debate on June 27, but the debate will be unlike those held between presidential candidates in the recent past. 

Trump told Biden he would debate him “Anytime. Anywhere. Anyplace,” and Biden accepted, but with stipulations. The Biden campaign said it would only agree to a debate if there was no live audience, hearkening back to the first televised presidential debate in 1960 between Democratic Sen. John F. Kennedy and Republican Vice President Richard Nixon, which was telecast live from a TV studio without a studio audience. 

Fox News reports that the Biden campaign also stipulated that the debate should be hosted by a “broadcast organization that hosted a Republican primary debate in 2016 in which Donald Trump participated, and a Democratic primary debate in 2020 in which President Biden participated—so neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable: if both candidates have previously debated on their airwaves, then neither could object to such venue.” 

Those stipulations limited the hosting networks to a handful of outlets, including CNN. The outlet’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will co-host the debate at CNN’s studios in Atlanta. The debate gives CNN the opportunity, amid low ratings, to appeal to Americans who have come to view CNN as little more than a mouthpiece for the Left. 

During prime time in March, Deadline reports, CNN averaged 601,000 views, falling far behind MSNBC’s 1.31 million-viewer average during the same time of day, and Fox News’ 2.14 million. CNN’s prime-time viewership is up 5% for the first quarter of 2024, compared with the previous year.

With additional Biden campaign stipulations requiring that a “candidate’s microphone should only be active when it is his turn to speak,” viewers will be watching whether CNN adheres to this rule equally between both candidates. 

Perhaps most importantly, CNN’s Tapper and Bash will be judged by the questions they do or don’t ask. 

Apart from questions related to the economy, which are bound to be asked, given Republican and Democratic voters’ shared concerns over inflation, CNN should take the opportunity to show U.S. voters it will hold Biden’s feet to the fire on the president’s border and immigration policies and his handling of foreign policy, with regard to China, Russia, and Iran, and support for Israel. 

If CNN fails to conduct a substantive debate between the two candidates, ABC News will have the opportunity to do so on Sept. 10, but CNN will have missed a golden opportunity to show Americans it can do more than pander to the Biden administration.

On this week’s edition of the “Problematic Women” podcast, we discuss what to expect during the upcoming presidential debates. 

Also on today’s show: A Target store’s tough anti-shoplifting measures in California show how far blue cities have fallen. Plus, ahead of Memorial Day, we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation. And as always, we’ll be crowning our “Problematic Woman of the Week.”

Listen to the podcast below: 

The post Trump, Biden, and CNN: What to Know About the First Presidential Debate appeared first on The Daily Signal.

MSNBC's Wallace on Nikki Haley Endorsing Trump: 'We Need Shrinks and Cult Experts to Explain This'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said Wednesday on her show "Deadline" that "shrinks and cult experts" needed to explain former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (R) endorsing former President Donald Trump.

The post MSNBC’s Wallace on Nikki Haley Endorsing Trump: ‘We Need Shrinks and Cult Experts to Explain This’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Nikki Haley Reveals She 'Will Be Voting for Trump'

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley revealed during a speech at the Hudson Institute on Wednesday that she plans to vote for former President Donald Trump in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

The post Nikki Haley Reveals She ‘Will Be Voting for Trump’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Poll: Majority Say a Taylor Swift Political Endorsement Wouldn’t Influence Their Vote

A new poll has found that a majority of respondents wouldn’t be influenced by a Taylor Swift presidential endorsement, signaling a possible decline in Swift’s power as a political influencer after she endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. In a poll conducted

The post Poll: Majority Say a Taylor Swift Political Endorsement Wouldn’t Influence Their Vote appeared first on Breitbart.

‘PRIVILEGE’: What the White House Doesn’t Think You Should Know About Biden’s Order on Mobilizing Voters

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—After President Joe Biden signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to work with private organizations to mobilize voters, senior White House officials asked agencies for “bold ideas” and explained plans to coordinate with “stakeholders.” 

One message from the White House, obtained by The Daily Signal, said: “We look forward to working with you to”—but the rest of the content is blacked out by a redaction. 

The specifics of those “bold ideas” and “stakeholders” isn’t knowable right now because “upon the advice of the White House Counsel’s Office, the information is being withheld under the presidential communications privilege,” according to a cover letter to The Daily Signal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture

The letter accompanied 99 pages that The Daily Signal obtained from USDA through a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Since Biden signed his executive order on elections in March 2021, members of Congress, the press, and watchdog groups have struggled to get basic information on how the administration is implementing the order. Some details have trickled out through FOIA law, which requires that basic information from the government be available to the public. 

Earlier this month, two House committees intensified their investigations of Biden’s order on turning out voters. 

Although records obtained previously by The Daily Signal under FOIA requests contained redactions and cited exemptions, the responses didn’t refer to “presidential communication privilege.”

“The presidential communications privilege protects communications among the president and his advisors,” the cover letter to the released but redacted documents says. 

“The records being withheld here consist of email communications concerning President Biden’s Executive Order 14019 and attached records that were solicited and received by the president or his immediate White House advisers who have broad and significant responsibility for investigating and formulating the advice to be given to the president,” says the letter signed by Alexis R. Graves, director of the USDA’s Office of Information Affairs. 

Other exemptions to disclosure cited in Graves’ cover letter include the deliberative process privilege and attorney-client privilege.

Critics of Biden’s executive order, some of whom refer to it as “Bidenbucks,” argue that its implementation could cause bureaucrats to violate the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits political activity using resources of the federal government. Critics also say the order may violate the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits agencies from spending taxpayers’ money for reasons not approved by Congress. 

Separately, the Justice Department has invoked presidential privilege to shield documents about Biden’s order in a public records lawsuit brought by the Foundation for Government Accountability, a watchdog group.

“In recent years, the presidential communications privilege has become an increasingly common excuse used by federal agencies to sidestep their disclosure obligations under federal law,” Stewart Whitson, senior director of federal affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability, told The Daily Signal. 

“During the current administration, federal agencies have shown an increasing willingness to stretch the presidential communications privilege well beyond what is allowed under current law—documents or other materials that reflect presidential decision making and deliberations that the president believes should remain confidential—to any and all documents received by White House advisers and their staff,” Whitson said.

“If allowed to persist, federal agencies and the politically appointed bureaucrats leading these agencies will gradually render the FOIA law meaningless. Government transparency and our very democracy are under threat,” he said.

Stephonn O. Alcorn, then the associate director of racial justice and equity at the White House, sent an April 1, 2021, email to all federal agencies that is heavily redacted in the released version. 

Alcorn’s email was about an interagency meeting to be convened eight days later, on April 9, by the White House Counsel’s Office and the Domestic Policy Counsel. The agenda is completely redacted.  

Alcorn notified agencies that taking the White House lead on Biden’s election executive order would be Justin Vail, special assistant to the president for democracy and civic participation with the Domestic Policy Council, and Larry Schwartztol, an associate White House counsel.

In September 2021, Kumar Chandran, senior adviser for nutrition to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, notified Vail of a change of plans for how the USDA wanted to implement Biden’s order. In the released record, however, the change is blacked out from public view. 

“After input from Sec. Vilsack this week, we are considering a change to one of our proposed actions, which would result in [redacted],” Chandran wrote. 

“We need to do some further diligence to determine if it is viable, but if it is, we think it might be more meaningful,” he added.

A White House press release that month gave a broad overview of how the USDA would implement Biden’s order on mobilizing voters. 

“The Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service will encourage the provision of nonpartisan voter information through its borrowers and guaranteed lenders, who interface with thousands of residents in the process of changing their voting address every year,” the White House press release said. “In addition, Rural Development agencies—which are spread throughout field offices across the country where rural Americans can apply for housing, facilities, or business assistance—will take steps to promote access to voter registration forms and other pertinent nonpartisan election information among their patrons.”

Getting to the point of how the USDA would push Americans to vote appears to be a tedious process, based on what’s discernible from the released records. 

Some messages were more heavily redacted than others. For example, a September 2021 message from USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Rural Development Farah Ahmad says only “This is” before the text is blacked out. 

A June 2021 email from Vail to Chandran was about the “interim report template.” 

“At this point,” Vail’s message began, followed by several lines of redacted information. He continued: “We just want to ensure that all agencies are taking steps to generate bold ideas and begin to flesh out those ideas; it will also allow the opportunity for us to provide feedback.”

This statement is followed by more heavy redactions. 

White House official Devontae Freeland, special assistant to the racial justice and equity team, notified agencies on July 2, 2021, about an upcoming conference with “stakeholders” on Biden’s executive order. 

Separate document releases show that a Zoom conference the following July 12 involved Biden administration officials and numerous far-left political organizations, among them unions. The groups included the Southern Poverty Law Center, Demos, the American Civil Liberties Union, the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations, the Stacey Abrams-founded Fair Fight Action, and the Al Sharpton-founded National Action Network. 

“As you know, we’re coordinating some input from stakeholders, including what we hope you found to be an informative session yesterday afternoon with state and local election officials,” Freeland wrote. 

“We’ve also planned a session for nonpartisan nonprofit organizations engaged in voting rights advocacy to provide their recommendations and thoughts on best practices; we will follow up shortly with an additional session from nonprofit organizations with substantial expertise in reaching out to and engaging particular populations of voters who may be more difficult to reach. We hope that each of these sessions will provide helpful feedback,” he wrote, before more redactions blacked out the text. 

In another heavily redacted message, Vail wrote USDA officials in late September 2021 with the subject line “Voting EO/Follow up items.”

On Oct. 6, 2021, Vail wrote to agencies about meeting on Biden’s executive order in coming days. 

“We look forward to working with you to [redacted],” he wrote. 

The next interagency meeting would be Oct. 20, Vail wrote. 

Spokespersons for the White House and the Agriculture Department didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s inquiries about this report before publication.

The post ‘PRIVILEGE’: What the White House Doesn’t Think You Should Know About Biden’s Order on Mobilizing Voters appeared first on The Daily Signal.

'I Think Both Candidates Are Trash': Charlamagne tha God Refuses to Endorse Biden

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

SiriusXM's "The Breakfast Club" host Charlamagne tha God said Wednesday on ABC's "The View" that he will not endorse President Joe Biden because "both candidates are trash."

The post ‘I Think Both Candidates Are Trash’: Charlamagne tha God Refuses to Endorse Biden appeared first on Breitbart.

More than 500 Candidates Under Federal Protection, Says Mexican President

More than 500 political candidates have been placed under federal protection as a way to ensure the safety of the upcoming elections, said Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The assertions follow the murders of more than 30 candidates during the current electoral cycle.

The post More than 500 Candidates Under Federal Protection, Says Mexican President appeared first on Breitbart.

Biden's Approval Rating, 36%, Drops to Lowest Mark Since July 2022

President Joe Biden's approval rating in May fell to its lowest level in almost two years, Reuters/Ipsos poll found Tuesday, deepening reelection concerns.

The post Biden’s Approval Rating, 36%, Drops to Lowest Mark Since July 2022 appeared first on Breitbart.

EXCLUSIVE: HHS Chief Routinely Checked Progress of Biden Election-Meddling Directive, Records Show

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Aides to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra routinely inquired about how at least one agency under his control was putting President Joe Biden’s executive order on elections into action. 

At least one message suggested that Becerra’s office and the agency within HHS wanted to know whether private organizations that received government grants were working to get out the vote through public service announcements or other means. 

On Nov. 30, 2021, two months after the White House announced a vague description of how federal agencies would implement Biden’s executive order on turning out the vote, Anna Perng, a special assistant in HHS’ Administration for Community Living, emailed colleagues to say that the department’s Immediate Office of the Secretary wanted monthly updates.

“IOS [Immediate Office of the Secretary] gently reminded me to update EO 14019 Promoting Voting Access milestones this Friday, 12/3. I had thought tha[t] [REDACTED].”

The Administration for Community Living focuses on issues important to senior citizens and disabled Americans. The White House previously announced that the agency would be a “voting access hub.”

On Dec. 15, 2021, Perng sent another email to ACL staff.

“It is our favorite time of the month: IOS is looking for updates on these milestones by this Friday. Are there any changes to the following?” Perng wrote in part. 

Perng emailed ACL colleagues on March 3, 2022, with another reminder. 

“IOS is requesting a status update on the EO Promoting Voting Access milestones by tomorrow COB,” Perng wrote. She continued: “For example, I know that there are primaries underway. ACL had said we would share/retweet/repost promote grantees’ voting resources. Have grantees created any voting materials, PSAs, etc.?”

The Daily Signal obtained 159 pages of heavily redacted documents from the Administration for Community Living through a request submitted under the Freedom of Information Act, shedding some light on how the HHS agency is implementing Biden’s election order. 

About three dozen pages of the records are from ACL’s “Administrative Priority Overview” and are almost entirely blacked out. 

Because of the excessive redactions to the released documents, it’s not clear how “milestones” may be defined or whether any were accomplished. 

Biden issued Executive Order 14019 in March 2021, requiring federal agencies to work on voter turnout. 

Since that time, public records trickling out through requests under the Freedom of Information Act show that federal agencies partnered or met with numerous left-leaning nonprofit advocacy groups on the subject of getting out the vote. The groups include Demos, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, the Al Sharpton-founded National Action Network, and the George Soros-backed Open Society Policy Center.

In September 2021, the White House issued a press release explaining how federal agencies would boost voting. 

“The Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Community Living will launch a new voting access hub to connect older adults and people with disabilities to information, tools and resources to help them understand and exercise their right to vote,” the press release says. 

The only other HHS agency specified by the White House as implementing Biden’s order is the Indian Health Service, which The Daily Signal first reported is partnering with Demos and the ACLU. 

It’s not clear from the unredacted information whether the Administration for Community Living is teaming with any overtly political groups.

The newly obtained records include correspondence dated March 11, 2022, from Michelle Bishop, voter access and engagement manager for the National Disability Rights Network, which advocates on behalf of the disabled. 

Bishop’s email was to Ophelia McLain, program manager with ACL’s Administration on Disabilities, who was active in implementing the president’s order. 

“As requested, I am sending an updated summary of trainings and resources planned for 2022,” Bishop told McClain. 

Bishop wrote that the National Disability Rights Network was partnering with other groups—including Self Advocates Becoming Empowered, the National Association of the Deaf, and the National Federation for the Blind—on activities such as making videos and “providing plain language explanations of complicated election topics” such as primaries, the differences between open and closed primaries, and how ranked choice voting works.

Spokespersons for neither the HHS nor the ACL responded to The Daily Signal by publication.

Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to reflect that the Department of Health and Human Services was contacted for comment before publication.

The post EXCLUSIVE: HHS Chief Routinely Checked Progress of Biden Election-Meddling Directive, Records Show appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Carville: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Will Hurt Trump More than Biden

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Democratic strategist James Carville said Monday on MSNBC's "Inside" that presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will take votes from former President Donald Trump.

The post Carville: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Will Hurt Trump More than Biden appeared first on Breitbart.

Model, Actress Amber Rose Endorses Trump '24

Model and actress Amber Rose issued an endorsement of former President Donald Trump in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

The post Model, Actress Amber Rose Endorses Trump ’24 appeared first on Breitbart.

Carville: Only 50% Chance Presidential Debates Happen

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Democratic strategist James Carville said Monday on MSNBC's "Inside" that there was only a 50% chance the presidential debates happen.

The post Carville: Only 50% Chance Presidential Debates Happen appeared first on Breitbart.

Biden Education Department Shared Activists’ Memo on Mobilizing Dem-Leaning Voters

Biden administration officials circulated and discussed a memo authored by a coalition of liberal groups aimed at getting more college students to participate in elections as part of the Education Department’s presidentially ordered voter-registration efforts, newly surfaced emails show.

Groups that donated millions to elect Democrats and are funded by major liberal donors submitted a list of recommendations to the Education Department in 2021 outlining ways the department could get college students, a historically liberal demographic, to vote more, according to emails obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. [Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.]

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The memo recommended that the Education Department include a voter registration option on its college financial aid application, use resources to make students aware of vote-by-mail opportunities, and allow universities to use federal work-study to pay students for nonpartisan election work.

The coalition of groups sent its memo in response to President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order directing federal agencies to promote voter registration, education, and participation, offering recommendations on how to implement it.

Nick Lee, deputy assistant secretary for higher education, shared the memo with Annmarie Weisman, another deputy assistant secretary, and Gregory Martin, another department official, emails show. Lee explained to Weisman and Martin that he had been discussing ways to implement Biden’s executive order with an Education Department policy director and that he was willing to speak further on the topic.

Lee also shared the memo with members of the Education Department’s Office of the General Counsel, again explaining that the department was in the process of finalizing responses to Biden’s voting executive order, emails show.

The Biden administration may have been receptive to at least one of the recommendations the coalition of left-of-center groups offered.

In April 2022, the Education Department clarified that universities could pay students with federal work-study funds to engage in election-related work. Although students may be compensated for voter registration work, they cannot be paid using federal funds “for work involving partisan or nonpartisan political activity, including party-affiliated voter registration activities, as this is expressly prohibited,” the department said.

In February, the Education Department expanded on the specific work that federal funds could cover, stating that “supporting broad-based get-out-the-vote activities, voter registration, providing voter assistance at a polling place or through a voter hotline or serving as a poll worker” were all acceptable.

Although Biden’s executive order stresses that agencies should tap “nonpartisan third-party organizations” to aid with voter registration efforts, the effects of registering more college students to vote could be a boon for the Democratic Party.

A September 2020 poll found that 70% of college students said they would vote for Biden in that year’s election, compared to just 18% who said they would vote for then-President Donald Trump. Strong turnout among college students in 2022 helped Democrats pull off a better-than-expected midterm election performance, NPR reported.

Heading into the November presidential election, Biden’s reelection campaign is seeking to mobilize college students.

The president held a 23-point lead over Trump among college students heading into the election, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics poll conducted in March.

The groups that sought to push the Education Department to mobilize more college voters themselves have ties to the Democratic Party.

The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, for instance, are both signatories of the memo and have spent millions of dollars to help elect Democrats through their political action committees, Federal Election Commission records show. Both groups endorsed Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary season and historically have supported the Democratic Party.

New America Foundation, which signed on to the memo through its education program, has received extensive support from the Soros family’s philanthropic network, pulling in millions since 2016, according to a grant database. George Soros himself has donated massive sums to Democrats and is one of the largest figures in the left-of-center philanthropic world.

The Voter Participation Center, another group that signed on to the memo, has received over $1 million from nonprofits managed by Arabella Advisors, tax filings show

Arabella Advisors is a consultancy firm that manages a network of nonprofits that spend millions every year on efforts to help liberal groups and Democrats.

The Voter Participation Center on its website claims to work diligently to mobilize members of the “New American Majority,” which includes people of color and unmarried women, to register to vote and cast ballots.

Republicans have taken issue with the Biden administration’s approach to using federal resources to juice voter participation.

“We have concerns about the lack of constitutional and statutory authority for federal agencies to engage in any activity outside the agency’s authorized mission, including federal voting access and registration activities,” a May 13 letter from the House Oversight Committee sent to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young reads.

The Education Department, New America, the Voter Participation Center, the National Education Association, and the American Federation of Teachers didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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Biden Claims He Was Vice President During Pandemic as Voters Say His 'Public Lapses' Are More Frequent

President Joe Biden’s latest blunder came on Sunday when he claimed that he was vice president during the pandemic and that former President Barack Obama sent him to Detroit, Michigan, to “help fix it.”

The post Biden Claims He Was Vice President During Pandemic as Voters Say His ‘Public Lapses’ Are More Frequent appeared first on Breitbart.

Donald Trump: Campaign Speech Canceled After Judge Decides to Start Trial Early on Monday 

Judge Juan Merchan began the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump earlier than scheduled on Monday, forcing the former president to cancel a campaign speech, Trump told reporters outside the courthouse.

The post Donald Trump: Campaign Speech Canceled After Judge Decides to Start Trial Early on Monday  appeared first on Breitbart.

Van Hollen: Trump Is a 'Complete Jerk' at Debates, He Wants to Create a 'Circus'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that at debates, former President Donald Trump behaves like a "complete jerk" who wants to create "circus-like entertainment."

The post Van Hollen: Trump Is a ‘Complete Jerk’ at Debates, He Wants to Create a ‘Circus’ appeared first on Breitbart.

The Truth About the 1968 Democrat Convention

Will we see a repeat this summer of the infamous 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention that devolved into chaos and anarchy? This year’s convention is, like 1968, set to take place in Chicago and social unrest is percolating on the Left, to say the least.

In a recent interview on Fox News, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn.—who challenged President Joe Biden in the Democratic Party presidential primary—said that given our current course of events, history is likely to repeat itself.

“I’m afraid this is looking awfully like 1968 with a lot of anger and angst and disenfranchisement that I think are going to play out on TV this summer, and it’s going to be awfully contentious,” Phillips said on Wednesday.

In 1968, anti-Vietnam War and various other far-left protesters descended on the Windy City to protest the party’s presidential nominating convention.

Illinois delegates hold a banner touting Chicago Mayor Richard Daley on the convention floor on Aug. 29, 1968, the final day of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. (Photo: Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

The situation escalated when then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, a Democrat, had enough and unleashed the Chicago Police Department on the protesters.

The media at the time strongly criticized the Chicago Police Department, but many Americans strongly sympathized with the authorities, who desperately sought to restore order. The events of the convention likely swayed a lot of voters concerned about violent radicals taking over their cities. Many in the media sided with the protesters, while the American people largely sided with the police.

Democratic Party delegates hold placards at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago in August of that year. (Photo: Archive Photos/Getty Images)

The chaos was likely one of the reasons Republican Richard Nixon defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey in November 1968. Preelection chaos created by the Left led to the “silent majority” delivering Nixon a resounding victory.

Given the protests we’ve seen across the country in recent months and the pressure the Left is putting on Democrats over Israel’s war in Gaza, it’s hard not to think that this year’s Democratic convention could see similar protests.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has said that safety is a “top priority” for the convention, but he’s hardly the law-and-order mayor that Daley was. In fact, Johnson has supported defunding the police, has openly sympathized with the anti-Israel protesters, and even made it clear that he’s nothing like Daley.

As my colleague Tony Kinnett noted, Johnson has said he’s a different kind of Democrat. In a certain sense, Johnson’s attitude is a sign that in the long-term, the New Left factions that protested in Chicago in 1968 “won.” (More on that later.)

While prominent Democrats and members of the media insist that 2024 won’t be like 1968, it’s difficult not to see that a storm is potentially brewing.

There have already been significant protests at Chicago universities, pro-Palestine groups have sprung up around the city (some spouting chants like “Death to America!”), and a large group of anti-Israel protesters raised a Palestinian flag near where the Democratic convention is set to take place Aug. 19-22. 

There’s no question that Democrats are already getting nervous about what might happen.

The 1968 convention was a seminal moment in both the history of the Democratic Party and the United States. It signaled a long-term takeover of the party and various other institutions by the New Left. 

Given that the comparisons will continue to be made, it’s worth looking back at what happened 56 years ago.

New Left Organizes to Sow Chaos

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson had elected not to seek a second term despite winning a landslide in 1964. Even though the Vietnam War had been conducted by Democratic presidents, the party had turned in an antiwar direction. This became a flashpoint for a party that had become increasingly divided.

The common narrative of the Chicago Democratic National Convention in the years that followed was that it was a “mostly peaceful” protest of the Vietnam War, broken up by a brutish and out-of-control Chicago police force.

That’s not exactly accurate.

The reality is that the well-organized protesters were looking to pick a fight to bolster their cause, as historian Stephen F. Hayward described in his book, “The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980.”

“The Chicago police reacted to a calculated provocation,” Hayward wrote. “And, like the case of fighting schoolchildren, where the second child to strike a blow is the one usually caught by the teacher, the media caught the police reaction and attributed it as the cause of the violence.”

Hayward explained how plans to disrupt the convention began as early as December 1967 and were the product of three main groups.

Those groups were the Youth International Party, or the “Yippies”; the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, or “Mobe”; and the Students for a Democratic Society, the SDS. The factions had slightly different agendas for what they wanted to pull off in Chicago.

The Mobe generally wanted a peaceful protest to take place, though it wasn’t exactly averse to causing mayhem—and potentially, violence.

“It would be a mistake to think that the fight against the war can be won in the ballot box,” said Mobe leader David Dellinger. “It still has to be won on the streets.”

The Yippies wanted something more like a giant street festival. They announced a plan to put LSD in the Chicago water supply. Chlorine treatment of the water would have neutralized any threat to the Chicago population, but the Chicago police took the threat seriously enough to put officers in front of the city’s filtration plants.

The Students for a Democratic Society were looking for a fight. Hayward noted that the reasons the SDS was looking to ratchet up violence is that they saw liberal antiwar presidential candidates like Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy as a threat.

For leaders of this movement and others on the far Left, the entire American system needed to be overthrown. They weren’t looking for peace in Vietnam; they were looking to overturn the American way of life and government.

While the three factions plotted different tactics to achieve their goals, they were nevertheless united behind a larger agenda.

They wanted to sow chaos as much as possible so that they could eventually shove their more moderate cohorts on the Left aside and take the reins of power. They wanted to agitate, disrupt, and put the most pressure possible on Democrats to bend to their will.

Humphrey frequently mentioned on the campaign trail that he wanted to bring the “politics of joy” to the country. The activists were having none of it.

“We are coming to Chicago to vomit on the ‘politics of joy,’” SDS leader Tom Hayden wrote before the convention, “to expose the secret decisions, upset the nightclub orgies, and face the Democratic Party with its illegitimacy and criminality.”

Days of Rage

Given the other events of 1968, it isn’t hard to see why the Democratic convention became a mess in hindsight.

Two riots had already taken place in Chicago earlier in the year. Civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot in April and Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June.

Many college campuses had been in turmoil in the spring. Student protesters had practically shut down Columbia University and occupied Hamilton Hall before being cleared out by the New York Police Department in late April. Yes, I’m still talking about 1968 here, not 2024.

By August, the mood was still deeply unsettled. The Democratic race came down to Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine. While the party had conceded a great deal to the antiwar wing, it wasn’t nearly enough to appease the activists.

There were late attempts to move the convention to Miami, but they didn’t come to fruition. Johnson, who remained a powerful influence in the party, was alleged to have said that “Miami is not an American city.” The show went on.

The 1968 convention was set to take place for four days in Chicago’s International Amphitheater, starting on Aug. 26. Before the events kicked off, protesters began gathering in the city.

Daley was hesitant to issue permits to the protesters, but consented to let them gather miles from the convention in Lincoln Park. He then changed his mind and ordered Chicago police to implement an 11 p.m. curfew.

Again, while many of the about 12,000 protesters who showed up in the city likely wanted to conduct a peaceful protest, the organizers knew that it would be easy to manipulate the situation to initiate violence.

More from Hayward:

[H]ard-core leaders of the Left knew it would be easy to manipulate the situation into a violent confrontation with police—and be able to blame the police. 

Chicago’s police were notoriously aggressive toward protesters and rioters. [Daley] had famously ordered his police to “shoot to kill” arsonists and looters during the riots that followed King’s assassination in April. (It should be noted, however, that no one was shot during the convention riots.)

Once the protesters had been pushed out of Lincoln Park, all hell began to break loose as the protesters violently clashed with police, who used tear gas and billy clubs to disperse the crowd.

It wasn’t just police clashing with the protesters. Daley brought thousands of National Guardsmen into the city, too, with the governor’s consent.

Violence continued to ramp up around the city as the protesters continued to clash with police, and members of the media got caught up in the melee.

Aug. 28 saw the most significant day of violence at the so-called “Battle of Michigan Avenue,” which was televised live. That night, Humphrey secured the nomination as police clashed with protesters who had attempted to march on the convention.

Authorities put up barricades around the convention site and tightened up security even further for the final day of the convention, where protesters twice tried to get into the convention hall, but were rebuffed.

Hundreds of protesters and police officers suffered injuries during the scrums and authorities arrested more than 650 people.

Though many prominent Democrats blamed Daley for the violence that took place, Daley naturally disagreed.

He argued that calling on the police and National Guard was necessary to suppress people who were intentionally creating violence and disorder. 

Daley gave a speech addressing what had happened.

“In the heat of emotion and riot, some policemen may have overreacted,” he said. “But to judge the entire police department by the alleged action of a few would be just as unfair as to judge our entire young generation by the action of this mob.”

Daley further said that while he didn’t condone any violent actions, he also would not permit a “group of violent terrorists to menace the lives of millions of people, destroy the purpose of this national convention, or take over the streets of Chicago.”

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley confers with President John F. Kennedy, a fellow Democrat, in the Oval Office of the White House on July 11, 1962. Daley was still mayor six years later during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. (Photo: Arnie Sachs/CNP/Getty Images)

The Aftermath

SDS leader Hayden said that the result of the Chicago protests was “100% victory in propaganda” and said he hoped that what happened in Chicago would be repeated around the country whenever Humphrey showed up at a campaign stop.

From the perspective of the New Left activists, the chaos was seen as a victory. The fact that several prominent members of the media were injured in the events was a bonus that would lead to sympathy and positive coverage for their cause, or so they said.

But attitudes around the country were hardly universal. Most Americans sided with Daley and the police over the activists, and many thought the police should have been even more proactive.

“A poll taken shortly after the riots found that 71 percent of Americans thought Chicago’s security measures were justified; 57 percent thought the police had not used excessive force, while 25 percent thought the police had not used enough force,” Hayward wrote.

In a sense, both the activists and their most stalwart opponents benefited politically from the Chicago convention.

The moderate wing of the Democratic Party continued to lose power and influence. The party was forever changed by what had transpired, and popular narratives took hold that the activists were on the right side of history, while the authorities were simply reactionaries.

On the flip side, a rising coalition on the Right—fed up with the urban chaos and intentional agitation—would deliver the White House in a landslide to Nixon.

The post The Truth About the 1968 Democrat Convention appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Will Democrats Pay a Price for Their Crumbling Lawfare Strategy Against Trump?

President Joe Biden, who wears bespoke sneakers to prevent embarrassing collapses and whose command of the English language rivals that of most kindergartners, is in bad political shape. 

It is unsurprising that Democrats have resorted to some of the slimiest tactics imaginable to derail President Donald Trump’s comeback bid and push their senile octogenarian across the November finish line. Properly skeptical of their chances to topple Trump in a fair mano-a-mano, the Democrat-lawfare complex in 2023 conjured up four separate criminal prosecutions—two federal probes and two state probes—targeting the 45th president. After all, if you can’t beat him, then … prosecute and incarcerate him! All in the name of “our democracy,” naturally.

Suffice it to say that the Democrat-lawfare complex’s brazen, cynical attempt to subvert our constitutional order in the name of saving it has not gone according to plan.

In Washington, D.C., Special Counsel Jack Smith’s crown-jewel case against Trump, pertaining to the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 jamboree at the U.S. Capitol, has been interrupted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices stepped in to assess the thorny constitutional question of the scope of immunity from criminal prosecution for former presidents, and a decision is not expected until late June.

The most likely result is a mixed opinion that holds some “core” Article II presidential functions are immune from post-presidency prosecution, but other acts are not. This would require a remand to the trial court for fact-finding to determine which legal category the acts in Smith’s indictment fall into. That trial court finding could then be appealed, too. There is virtually no chance Smith can wrap this all up before November.

In Florida, Smith’s other federal case has not been more successful. The Florida prosecution, pertaining to Trump’s post-presidency handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, had at least some potential on the legal merits. But Smith wildly overplayed his hand by charging Trump with violating the controversial World War I-era Espionage Act, and the proceedings have frequently been set back due to the strenuous demands of the Classified Information Procedures Act—a 1980 statute first introduced in the Senate, ironically, by then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

Recently, Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely postponed the trial start date, which had initially been scheduled for May 20. There is again little to no chance Smith can reach a jury before November.

The case in Fulton County, Georgia, which once seemed the most perilous of them all due to Georgia’s sprawling Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the far-left Atlanta jury pool, and the potential for high-profile prosecution witnesses, has gone totally off the rails. Ever since January, the only questions in the case have not been substantive legal issues such as whether Trump oversaw a grand conspiracy to “overturn an election,” but tabloid fodder such as whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her illicit extramarital lover and appointed special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, are too compromised to bring the case.

The trial court’s finding that only one of them must recuse is now pending before a Georgia appellate court, and it is likely the Supreme Court of Georgia will weigh in, too. This case isn’t reaching a jury before November, either.

That leaves the ongoing drama in New York City, where a literal porn “star” (Stormy Daniels) and a convicted felon (Michael Cohen) are aiding the George Soros-funded prosecutor’s case of … well, he hasn’t exactly told us what it is. We surmise the case entails alleged New York State fraudulent bookkeeping charges in furtherance of a federal campaign finance law violation—which doesn’t even fall into the local district attorney’s jurisdiction.

The prosecution is about to rest its case, and we don’t even know for sure what the actual black-letter legal case is. On Thursday, the “star witness” convicted felon’s testimony was so bad that far-left CNN anchor Anderson Cooper remarked: “I think if I was a juror in this case watching that, I would think this guy is making it up as he’s going along.”

Brutal.

The Democrats’ strategy is failing. But it is up to the American people to make them pay for it.

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The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. 

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Joy Behar: 'You Will Not Have a Country if Trump Gets In'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Joy Behar told her co-hosts on Friday on ABC's "The View" that if former President Donald Trump is elected president again in November, we "will not have a country."

The post Joy Behar: ‘You Will Not Have a Country if Trump Gets In’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Jimmy Fallon Torches Biden Debate Announcement: He Wants CNN Because It Has No Audience

Comedian Jimmy Fallon took a torch to President Joe Biden's announcement of the upcoming presidential debate set for next month, joking that Biden wants to debate on CNN because the network has no audience.

The post Jimmy Fallon Torches Biden Debate Announcement: He Wants CNN Because It Has No Audience appeared first on Breitbart.

Kamala Harris Accepts Vice-Presidential Candidate Debate Offer from CBS

Vice President Kamala Harris has agreed to take part in a VP candidate debate hosted by CBS News this summer, the Biden-Harris campaign confirmed Thursday.

The post Kamala Harris Accepts Vice-Presidential Candidate Debate Offer from CBS appeared first on Breitbart.

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