“Donald Trump’s Achilles heel is his own narcissistic self-assurance, which translates into him always being right when he decides that he is.Which is always.
The 2020 election had plenty wrong with it.From media and Big Tech interference to bulk-mail balloting, it was not a fair election, even if most of the problems were arguably “legal.”
Trump, however, cemented in his own mind and in the minds of his most faithful followers that there was no possible way he could have lost the election.To this day, Trump has doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on his claim that the election was “rigged” and “stolen,” though he and his legal team tended to focus on counting votes instead of the aforementioned real problems.Furthermore, any Republican or conservative who dares to question Trump’s claim is immediately smeared as a RINO and part of the problem.
Trump’s MO has long been to never admit defeat.While this may be a calculated tactic to show toughness for making business deals, it is not a characteristic of good leadership.Yes, there is a long line of leaders throughout history who shared this “my way or the highway” ethic, but most of them were tyrants who always placed their own interests ahead of the rights and needs of the people.
The United States of America is not a democracy but a republic.Our system of government rests upon the populace electing representatives whose power is both delineated and limited by the Constitution.Superseding all elected officials’ authority is the Constitution.It is the standard for governance of the people.So, when individuals seeking power appear to call for all or parts of the Constitution to be ignored, changed, or terminated, this should immediately raise red flags.
Over the weekend, just in time for the critical Georgia Senate runoff, Trump issued his latest 2020 election fraud rant by posting on his social media site Truth Social the following message:
So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?
He added:
A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. (Emphasis ours) Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections.
Trump was responding to new Twitter owner Elon Musk’srelease of the “Twitter Files”exposing internal documents that show how the company colluded with Democratsand federal law enforcement(More on that later from Andy McCarthy)to censor damaging stories — primarily the one about Hunter Biden’s laptop revealing Joe Biden’s corruption — ahead of the 2020 election. Twitter’s collusion with Democrats is indeed a scandal that is still being unpacked.Big Tech clearly interfered in the 2020 election on behalf of Joe Biden and the Democrats. This interference may have swung the election in Biden’s favor, as there have been reports indicating that a significant number of Biden voters would not have voted for him if they had known the Hunter Biden laptop story was not fake news but genuine.
However, election interference and election fraud are not synonymous.
Russia interfered in the 2016 election, but that does not mean that Trump’s election victory was fraudulent or illegitimate. Trump won legitimately no matter how much the Washington establishment, the Leftmedia, and Democrats angrily denied it as they fomented their baseless Russian collusion conspiracy theory.
It’s understandable that Trump, after seeing Twitter’s latest revelation, would see this as vindicating his loudly expressed claims of the 2020 election being rigged and stolen. “You can see why President Trump is pissed. He should be,” argues Ben Shapiro. But his response is “jumping on a rake with both feet.” Instead of the story being Twitter’s malfeasance, now the Leftmedia can more easily ignore that and focus on Trump’s would-be authoritarianism.
Besides, feelings don’t make facts, and try as he might, Trump was not able to provide the necessary facts to prove his voter fraud allegations in court. That’s primarily because he was barking up the wrong tree.
Trump is playing that classic political game: conflation. Musk revealed that interference took place, not fraud. Nothing Musk revealed shows that voter fraud occurred in 2020. None of the “Twitter Files” show any illegally cast ballots, voter suppression, rigged voting machines, or intentionally uncounted ballots. Trump has made all these claims in support of his “stolen election” assertions, though he failed to deliver legitimate legal evidence to prove any of them in a court of law, at least on a scale significant enough to change the results in even one state.
But of course, to Trump, if he believes it, then that’s all the evidence he needs…”
And here’s where the author starts to lose us:
“The way forward, however, is not to endlessly litigate the past as if it could be changed but to push for election integrity and better voter information so future contests are trustworthy. Yet here we are once again contending with apocalyptic headlines about Trump and the Constitution.
Did Trump really call for the “termination” of the Constitution? The short answer is “No.” Trump always has been rather imprecise with his language, and as some have keenly observed, “listen to what he means, not what he says.” Thus, it’s easy to see how some concluded that he was attacking the Constitution.
“The fake news is actually trying to convince the American people that I said, I wanted to ‘terminate’ the constitution,” Trump later asserted. “This is simply more disinformation and lies.”
In reality, Trump was attempting to argue that the 2020 election’s “massive fraud” was so egregious that it served to not only undercut all the rules regulating America’s electoral system, it also effectively allowed for “terminating” those election stipulations within the Constitution. Therefore, the only remedy Trump sees is to throw out the declared 2020 election winner, Biden, and have himself recognized as the winner, or hold a new election.
The trouble Trump runs into is there is nothing within the Constitution that would support his desired action…”
Here’s the juice: One cannot blame critics for pouncing on The Donald’s words. Rather blame his disinterest in facts, 2nd-grade vocabulary and over-reliance on superlatives. And no amount of post-comment reading of Trump’s intent will change his own words as might be reasonably interpreted by a reasonable, independent individual: A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, all regulations, and all articles, even ALL those found in the Constitution.
You’ll forgive our momentary comparison of a brilliant yet imperfect human document with the inspired Word of the Most High God, but you can no more recognize select sections the Constitution as the law of the land than you can pick and choose only certain verses of Scripture as coming directly from the Lord. This is akin to practicing homosexuals, adulterers or murderers accepting the entirety of the Bible as gospel…excepting those sections condemning their ongoing sin.
Which frankly would come as no big surprise from a man who misquoted Scripture to a largely Christian audience while trying to curry favor with Evangelical voters:
Two Corinthians…two Corinthians…they what, walked into a bar?!?
“Once again, Donald Trump has proposed dismantling the United States Constitution. “Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?” Trump asked on TruthSocial Saturday. “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
The answer to Trump’s question is “neither.” The response to his declaration is, “No, it does not.” The conclusion one must draw is that the 45th president of the United States has lost whatever was left of his mind.
…Trump lost his reelection bid because he is an ill-disciplined boor, and, if he were to secure the nomination in 2024, he’d lose that race for the same reason. One does not have to renounce his many achievements in office to observe that the man is a loser and a cheat, or to notice that he’s turned a significant number of his fans into losers and cheats as well. What Trump did in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election was monstrous. What he has taken to suggesting since then is even worse. American patriots do not seek to overturn legitimate election results or recommend the suspension of the United States Constitution; they respect and defend both at all costs. Donald Trump isnot a patriot. He is, in his heart of hearts, a tyrant. Take note, America.“
While we appreciate and understand Cooke’s point, in the interest of fairness, while Trump is indeed an ill-disciplined boor we’d never want to join on the golf course or at dinner, overturning a manifestly unfair election which was unquestionably tinged with fraud doesn’t rise to the level of tyranny in our mind any more than did the January 6 riot at the Capitol constitute insurrection.
Which provides the perfect segue into this from Best of the Web:
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol will issue criminal referrals to the Justice Department based on its inquiry, the panel’s chairman said on Tuesday, but has made no decision on who it will recommend charging or what offenses it will cite.
Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the Democratic chairman of the committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill that the panel had agreed to take the step and would meet later Tuesday to discuss the specifics. But within moments, he and his staff rushed to clarify his statement, reflecting a debate that is still underway within the panel about whether to call for charges against former President Donald J. Trump and some of his top allies.
What was clearly needed was not a clarification but a retraction. Americans reasonably expect their government to identify a specific crime before suggesting charges. But it seems the “clarification” simply clarified the outrageous approach pursued by this sham committee which consists only of Democrats and Democrat-approved Republicans…
…Is this committee so political and partisan that it first decided that criminal referrals are necessary to advance its agenda, and only now has set about trying to figure out little details like who should be targeted for prosecution by Biden Justice and on what basis?…”
It’s life once again imitating art, in this case the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland:
How proud must Dick Cheney be of his daughter now?!?
Next up in the Annals of Socialized Medicine, Jim Freeman cautions…
Anyone still thinking that “Medicare for All” is an appealing idea should examine the availability and quality of care in government-run universal health systems around the world. Over in the United Kingdom, Kat Lay and Chris Smyth report today for The Times of London:
Five million patients were unable to book a GP appointment when they tried to make one in October, analysis has suggested.
Problems with access to family doctors will drive patients to accident & emergency and exacerbate pressure on hospitals, campaigners said yesterday.
Another two million people faced a wait of more than a month to see their doctor, the highest number since the records began, in 2017, and 4.3 million waited for more than a fortnight.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a fortnight is 20 days. Two of the great statesmen of the 20th century had it right:
“A criminal court jury in Manhattan found the Trump Organization guilty on all charges in a criminal tax fraud scheme on Tuesday.
The Trump Corporation was convicted on nine criminal counts, while the Trump Payroll Corporation was found guilty of eight criminal counts. Both corporations are a part of the Trump Organization. The 17 counts include scheme to defraud, conspiracy, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. The two corporations face criminal penalties of up to $1.6 million. Jurors deliberated for just over a day before reaching a verdict.
Former president Donald Trump was not charged in the case and claimed in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday that the district attorney’s office had been “fighting a political Witch Hunt for D.C. against ‘Trump.’”
The Trump Organization and its former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg were indicted last year, with prosecutors alleging that the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporations paid their “already highly paid executives,” even more by “cheating on their taxes” between 2005 and June 2021. The company relied on off-the-books benefits including luxury cars and free apartments.
The 75-year-old former CFO pleaded guilty to 15 felony charges in August after a three-year investigation by the Manhattan DA’s office. The two corporations argued Weisselberg was to blame for the scheme and that he had implemented the plan to his own benefit.
Weisselberg, who received a reduced sentence for testifying on behalf of the DA’s office, evaded $1.76 million in taxes through the receipt of various luxury perks, prosecutors said. “It was my own personal greed that led to this,” Weisselberg said during an emotional testimony.
While Trump was not involved in the trial, prosecutors told jurors Trump had signed off on bonus checks and memos that allowed top executives to avoid reporting taxable income. Trump’s two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, also signed off on bonus checks made out to independent contractors, according to Weisselberg’s testimony, allowing the former CFO to hide taxable income…”
Sorry, but we’re to believe NONE of the family purportedly possessed of business acumen beyond the reach of mere mortals signed these checks without any understanding of either the payments’ purposes or destinations?!?
Here’s a second shot of the juice: Both of the highlighted, italicized sections in the preceding sentence cannot be true. We report, you decide. And our reporting questions why any Republican would settle for long-opened bottle of flat Totts…
…rather than a…
…even if Ron DeSantis was born a year after we graduated from the Naval Academy!
Moving on, here’s an quintet of items certain to pique the interest of inquiring Conservative minds:
“We have done all of the above. It would be hard to imagine any planned agenda to destroy America that would have been as injurious as what we already suffered the last two years.“
(2). Since we’re on the subject of historically heinous behavior, a special grand jury report was released Monday on the conduct of Loudoun County Public Schools relating to their handling of and reaction to the sexual assault of a female student at Broad Run High School by an male assailant feigning transgenderism who was transferred to Broad Run after committing a similar assault at another high school.
SPOILER ALERT: It wasn’t very complimentary of the LCPS’s conduct, noting it would have considered an indictment against the school system’s division counsel had the statute to do so existed. Something tells us if the district’s attorney had been covering up similar conduct by a straight White Conservative male, the Feds would find a way to charge him with a civil rights crime violation.
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these from Balls Cotton…
Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with the Sports Section, though this torrid tale of political correctness could well have been torn from the pages of The Crime Blotter:
“Curt Schilling was one of the greatest MLB pitchers of his generation; however, his pursuit of the Baseball Hall of Fame eluded him again on Sunday.
Fred McGriff was elected to Cooperstown through the contemporary baseball era committee. He received unanimous support from the 16 members of the committee – comprised of Hall members, executives and baseball writers. Schilling, along with Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, failed to get eight of the 12 votes required to make it to Cooperstown through the committee.
Baseball fans hoping Schilling got into the Hall of Fame believed that comments made about Muslims, transgender people and others penalized him and overlooked what he has done in his career. On the field, his resume checked all the boxes.
He was a six-time All-Star, three-time World Series champion, World Series MVP and National League Championship Series MVP. He finished runner-up for the Cy Young Award three times. He led the National League and American League in wins one-time each.
He played 20 years in the majors and finished with a 3.46 ERA and 3,116 strikeouts. He is one of 19 pitchers to record 3,000 or more strikeouts. The only retired pitchers in the club who are not in the Hall of Fame are Schilling, Clemens and CC Sabathia. Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer are still playing.
…Known as the “Crime Dog,” McGriff hit .284 in his 19-year career that ended with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He hit 493 home runs and had a 52.6 bWAR. He won a World Series with the Atlanta Braves in 1995.“
With all due respect to the Crime Dog, Schilling is unquestionably more qualified for enshrinement than McGriff, if for no other reason than his incredibly gutsy performance leading Boston to finally break the Curse of the Bambino:
Such treatment of a truly outstanding player and genuinely great human being just adds to our determination never to watch a MLB game again.
Magoo
Video of the Day
Toure gives John Stossel the low-down on Black Guns Matter…a “matter” of life when the good guys have them.
Tales of The Darkside
The fact this feckless fool utterly bereft of any principles whatsoever once chaired the RNC proves the existence of RINOs beyond any shadow of a doubt.
On the Lighter Side
Gavin Newsom’s idiotic predictions regarding the results of reparations to the contrary notwithstanding, Dave Chappelle accurately foresaw the inevitable outcome of taking money from those utterly unconnected with a past wrong and giving it to those who never suffered from it.
Loading ...
You must be logged in to post a comment.