Usually the wave doesn’t crest until a few days before an election. The undecideds and Independent votes crystallize around one candidate or party at the last minute. For the 2022 midterms, two weeks before the election, it appears the wave has started and will continue to build unabated. The undecideds have decided, and its going in one direction. One-time “safe” Democrat candidates are now “lean” Democrat. Recent “lean” Democrat candidates are now “toss-ups”…and so on. You get the idea. Races once considered safe in blue states for Democrats are now nail-biters.

Think back just a few months, following the Supreme Court ruling basically cancelling Roe v Wade. The left thought they had their flicker of hope. Conventional wisdom had them losing possibly 20-30 seats, as is often the case in a midterm election. A number of mostly left-leaning pundits thought the court decision could even create a situation where the GOP gaining control was not a certainty. They were sure a huge jolt of adrenalin would energize the abortion-crazed leftist and send them sprinting to the polls en masse.

Today? That issue barely registers in any polls. What a change! The news keeps getting worse for the Democrats, and if you want to identify a defining reason, look no farther than that old pillar of a democratic republic…the debate.

In almost every instance, the conservative candidate has pounded their leftist counterpart, if they’d even to agree to debate in the first place.  We got a taste of what was to come, two years ago, when Glenn Youngkin took it to Clintonista Terry MacAullife in Virginia. Fast forward to last weeks New York gubernatorial debate, Republican Lee Zeldin embarrassed liberal incumbent Kathy Hochul. He was game-ready, forceful, and relentless. She was meek, unprepared and pathetic. After Zeldin laid into her about New York’s appalling crime problem, the best Hochul could do was “I don’t know why that’s so important to you.” Similar mismatches occurred in Michigan, Pennsylvania (Dr Oz) and Georgia. And course, Arizona where the pitiful Democratic candidate for governor, Katie Hobbs dodged Kari Lake. Well...it was probably a good thing.

Lake, a former news anchor would have humiliated Hobbs. And why is that? The main stream media never, ever challenges the progressive elites. The candidates rarely get a tough or embarrassing question from their journalistic cohorts. The elite ruling class and their minions have grown soft. They only read or watch MSM news outlets, getting the sense that their side is dominant.  They are not battle-hardened like the Republicans. The GOP candidates look down the barrel of a gun nearly every day. They need to be sure about their positions, their responses. Their arguments need to be air-tight. There is no better debate prep than getting peppered with questions from the antagonistic regime media which shares the exact same world view as the Democratic candidates. The leftist media thinks they are doing their comrades-in-arms a favor by giving them a pass on indefensible policy positions, when in reality they are setting them up for failure.

Besides the battle-readiness issue, the right will always win in the arena of ideas. The left resorts to ad hominem attacks, because they are bereft of solid policy positions. Abortion and screaming “racist” is all they have.

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There is still over a week left until the election, and as mentioned, the  trends look good for the Republicans and it might be time to put yourself out there, and predict who wins and by how much. First off, I’m not going with the pollsters, I’m going with the bettors.  They are right much more often than the polls are (think YouGov and Politico---not even close). In 2016, the day before the election, the betting line favored Hillary, but before the polls closed on that Tuesday, the betting line favored Trump. In 2020, the bettors picked Biden to win Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. The odds were very narrow, but they picked it right. Bettors pick up things pollsters miss, like who has college degrees and who talks to pollsters. Here are some numbers from one betting house. Oz 54% chance to beat Fetterman, Lake 82% chance to beat Hobbs. The fun betting lines to follow are Predictit and Electionbettingodds.com. Jump on every now and then to get the real low down.

My Picks

Senate GOP 53-47 GOP Picks up NV, AZ, and GA, and hold others.

House GOP 237-198 Seeing some movement against McCarthy for Speaker. Jordan is moving up in the betting.

Let me know yours. Just put them in comments and I’ll think of a fun prize for whoever comes closest.

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This election cycle is getting to seem more and more like Groundhog Day. Three months before an election, this time the 2022 Midterms, polls seem to reflect a growing affinity for Democrats. And the pollsters that have the biggest Democrat rebound are tied to mostly left-leaning news outlets. They are doing their best to discourage the GOP voter from showing up. Remember, the media (and the polls they churn out) admit they don’t even try to be impartial anymore.

Two outfits lead the pack. Economist/YouGov is a notoriously left-wing UK-based outfit that never factors in American’s voting idiosyncrasies (I’ll share a few later in the piece) and the Morning Consult/Politico poll, is well, how you might guess a pro-Regime tainted poll would slant things. NBC News polling and Investors Business Daily/TIPP run a close second. They all have abysmal track records but it never seems to derail their efforts to continue to promote the Democrat Party.

There is one pollster who got it right two elections in a row. Robert Cahaly, the brains behind the Trafalgar poll recently forecasted what we might see on election night 2022. In 2016 Trump supporters were called “Deplorables” and other unflattering names. This was a major contributor to the “shy Trump voter” phenomenon that “most” polling missed which resulted in a major loss in public confidence for polling following the election.

In 2020 people who supported Trump or espoused conservative values out of step with “Woke” culture found themselves being “canceled” or “doxed”. This led to “hidden voters” that “most” polling under counted, therefore Trump support in key battleground states exceeded expectations. In 2020, Biden enjoyed an average lead of 5.5 points in Wisconsin and nine points in Michigan. Then-President Trump lost Wisconsin by less than 1 and Michigan by 3…both states polling numbers were off by over 5 points. It could much more during this cycle.

The Biden administration has essentially classified “MAGA Republicans” as a threat to democracy marshaling federal law enforcement to focus on them. This move has created a new type of voter that will be even harder to poll or even estimate.

This new group is being called the “submerged voters”. They aren’t putting stickers on their cars, signs in their yards, posting their opinions, or even answering polls.  At this point it’s fair to say that Biden’s pursuit of and attacks on “MAGA Republicans” has created an army of voters who will be virtually impossible to poll and more difficult still to estimate.

The 2022 Republican turnout will likely be higher than any of the polls or models are showing. All polls will understate the impact of these “submerged voters”. This year, the real results might even be more askew than past elections.

Overturning Roe v Wade is said to have energized the left-leaning voter, and passing the hilariously-named “Inflation Reduction Act” is being heavily touted by the Democrats and their willing abettors in the corporate media. But, to most American’s those issues pale when compared to rampant inflation, urban crime, open borders and the mind-boggling phenomenon of the left’s penchant for grooming young children. These are all issues the “submerged voter” finds repellent and there is a growing sense that they will show up in force on Election Day.

The RealClearPolitics Generic Ballot now has the Democrats at +1. I’ve stated a few times on this site that history shows that Democrats would need to be at +5 to hold their majority. That’s because most urban Democrat members of Congress win handily, or have no Republican opponent at all. While Republican leaning districts tend to have much closer races, hence the disparity.

For the House I am expecting a 30-35 member GOP pickup. The Senate is a little tougher to pick. Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona have tightened, Nevada is showing Republican Adam Laxalt leading as is Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. North Carolina, Ohio and Florida GOP Senate candidates are leading, but narrowly. I’m somewhere between a one-seat GOP pickup or it stays at 50-50. The final results will depend on how many “submerged voters” there are out there.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

There may be a reason why this might be the year of the “submerged voter”. Liberal elites have become insufferable, and most Americans see their hypocrisy. They are against a wall, but live in gated communities. They are for gun control, but have armed security. They destroy public education, but send their kids to private schools. They support mask mandates, but only servants wear them at their parties. They fully think they are morally superior and use it to justify their woke agenda. We’ll see if middle-America is as dismayed with the path the country is taking as some are predicting.

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By now most of us know about Rasmussen Polls. Many of us go to Real Clear Politics during the day to see how poorly the President is doing in his daily popularity poll. For those who haven’t checked lately…it’s as bad as any President in modern times 42% approval, 57% disapprove. Some polls have his support at 35%. Based on a poll of how the media covers politics, if I had to guess, President Biden must only watch the mainstream media.

A Rasmussen poll (see below) that comes out once a week paints a sorry picture of the state of America’s media and politics. Polling of real people indicate that most Americans are interested in 1) rising gas prices, 92% 2) Inflation, 91% 3) Violent Crime 90%, 4) Election Integrity, 79%, School Issues 76%

However, when the polling company tracked what stories people we’re seeing on the nightly news, this is what most likely led or was given extensive coverage, 1) Climate Change 64%, 2) Ukraine War 60%, 3) Capital Riot Investigation, 57%, 4) COVID-19 57%, 5) LGBTQ+++++++++ 57%.

Pretty shocking. Complete disconnect. Every once in a while the MSM sends a reporter into the heartland to interview a farmer or a barber and they are always shocked to learn that the issues the media chooses, are not ones real people are talking about. In flyover country, schools matter. CRT and transgender story-hour for third graders doesn’t go over well.

Urban, white elites are not real people, although you’d never know it based on the amount of noise they make. These are people who “insist” on US using their proper pronouns to ensure that we are keenly aware of their gender preferences. And they will be outrageously upset if you don’t. These are people who think an 8-month old fetus is just a glob of cells. These are people who think the Supreme Court should be stacked because the majority’s decisions differ from theirs. And because they have moral superiority, it’s okay to break the law by not protecting Supreme Court justices and allowing illegal aliens to cross into our country.

Oh, and did I mention you are a racist, if you had the misfortune of being born white. It’s because the noisy, pompous elite care more about your color or your race or your gender preference than where you are on the socio-economic ladder. They care more about diversity than class. They will never admit that competent economic policy raises all, in spite of your minority status. If they do admit it, it’s over. The Big Con would be exposed. Their entire movement depends on racial, ethnic and gender specific minorities continuing to think of themselves as victims.

One lefty has turned tail. Ruy Teixeira was up until a month ago, one of Washington’s most prominent left-leaning think-tank scholars, a fixture at the Center for American Progress since the liberal organization’s founding in 2003. In a recent Politico article he came clean. He is now a card-carrying member of The American Enterprise Institute, the longtime conservative think tank that over the years has employed the likes of Newt Gingrich, Dinesh D’Souza, and Robert Bork. He said he left because “the relentless focus on race, gender, and identity in historically liberal foundations and think tanks has made it hard to do work that looks at society through other prisms. It also makes people nervous about projects that could be accused of giving short shrift to anti-racism efforts.”

While the kook-fringe left might give the impression they are being compassionate, to many of the groups they are trying to advocate for, they are being patronizing and paternalistic. Their divisive tactics will not translate to votes in the midterms. It’s not a good thing for the country and I believe that it will be rejected in November, and beyond.

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Fun Tidbits

Kentucky has joined Florida by being able to register more Republicans than Democrats. It’s been 40 years since Republican voters in Kentucky outweighed those from the Democrat party.

With just over three months to go until the midterms, The Cook Political Report has the GOP taking 30 seats from the Democrats in November. Most agree it could be more, but what’s giving the experts pause is the trend toward drawing non-competitive district lines. There are fewer and fewer swing districts and for the challenger in a district with more than a 10% deficit of voters of your party, it often takes a scandal to overcome it. The RealClearPolitics Generic Ballot has the GOP with a 2% edge. Most agree that the GOP would take control of the House if the Dem’s had a 5% edge due to the way urban district representatives often get 80% of the vote, and mid-country Republicans only win with 55%. Another factor cutting into Republican’s expectations are the fact they they won a number of seats they weren’t expecting to win in 2020, so there aren’t as many to flip.

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Clarence Thomas was just one of 5 members of the Supreme Court who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. In fact it was Justice Samuel Alito who wrote the 78-page opinion essentially sending the matter back to the states. But nearly all of the rage vented after the vote was against Thomas. And almost all of it exhibiting some of the most unfiltered, bigoted screeds seen and heard in decades. The number of leftists calling out Thomas as a “house n*****” is stunning. Terms like “Uncle Clarence” and “uppity n*****”, (because he’s married to a white woman) are now tossed around Twitter by allegedly enlightened thinkers who would have tried to cancel a political opponent who would utter those words just weeks ago. And by the way, Twitter, always fair and balanced, had the phrase, Uncle Clarence, trending for much of a recent day.

They must apparently think that it’s okay because Thomas is not a Democrat. He’s departed the plantation so he’s not really black. The grandson of a Savannah sharecropper who never saw indoor plumbing until his teens now is incurring the slurs and arrows of a new type of American. One who is so filled with rage and hate for those whose worldviews differ from theirs, that they defy usual social norms when trying to call them out. And nearly all are white men and women, between 25-40 (Think Google employee).

Part of the same gang is proudly going on social media (Liberals of TikTok) proclaiming that they will be sending their period blood via UPS to Supreme Court justices who voted to dump R v W. The lack of awareness, logic and perspective exhibited by these folks is breathtaking. The participation-awarded, coddled pampered punks that now make up the Democrat base are more Kabuki than constructive.

One of the most predictable rants sowed by Democrats after they lose a fight, is they try to delegitimize the institution, rather than rally up votes through reason and logic. The electoral college is a regular target. Republicans know there are no votes for them in urban areas in blue states so they don’t spend a dime in those areas. Instead, they pursue voter-rich states in flyover America. Winning the popular vote is not an objective, not in the least. But the left can’t get past it. The last two Republican President’s were chosen without winning the popular vote. Hillary Clinton’s personal soy boy, Ben Rhodes, is promoting the notion that the Supreme Court is illegitimate because Republican Presidents (GW Bush and Trump) packed the court (legally) with conservatives who won their elections without getting 50% of the popular vote. Rhodes is advocating adding members to compensate for that wrong, at the very least, term limits for court members.

The abhorrent Mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, also went off on Clarence Thomas, telling a bunch of prochoice fulminators to “F Clarence Thomas”. A few days before, when New York ruled conceal-and-carry laws were fine, she went on a rant about how guns were responsible for the wave of public shootings. What she failed to say was that there are many more young children killed by stray bullets in poorly-policed urban areas each year, than the number of those killed at Columbine, Parkland and Ovalde combined. The strictest gun-control measures would not keep one of those urban killers from getting their gun. In fact, gun-control advocates are keeping urban dwellers from defending themselves, another egregious form of left-leaning bigotry.

It’s too early to say if overturning Roe v Wade or the outrage over Uvalde, will effect the outcome. Some say it will invigorate Democrat’s, who are always outraged. If that’s the case, they have a long way to go. An NPR poll (of all places) recently reported that, if primary voting can be used as an indicator of voter enthusiasm, Republicans are up 20% from the same time four years ago, during the last midterm cycle.

The tranny twerking in front of children, the anti-racist brainwashing in public schools and rightspeak in colleges has compelled more-traditional parents to look for alternatives to current educational institutions. Gas prices, inflation, DEI and ESG are quickly changing the way American’s view their world. They feel things are spinning out of control and they know they don’t have long to dismantle the powers behind it.

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Just a reminder, I went undefeated in six tries running for public office, I covered politics for three television network affiliates, I hosted a political talk show, I was a press secretary for an Arizona gubernatorial candidate and was a Political Science major at UCLA. I follow this stuff so you don’t have to.

Some say The Fourth of July is the real start of campaign season. But not this year. Thanks to an early, massive dump of radical left policy initiatives, the right has picked up their collective game.

Culture battles, crises at the border, full term abortion, gun confiscation, dispiriting inflation and budget-crushing gas prices are all riling up voters, particularly Republicans. And the left is starting to show signs of panic.

Midterm elections are typically a bummer for the party in power. For the Democrats, will results be bad, very bad, or very, very bad? This year, metrics are indicating that the Democrats could see record losses. The Redistricting Score has flipped in the last month, from +5 for the Democrats to +5 for the Republicans. Judges saw through the gerrymandering and heavy-handed district-rigging tried by Marc Elias and his Democratic mob.

Besides the redistricting gains, there are many more indicators that the Republicans may pick up as many as 60 seats in the house and two or three in the Senate. First off, polling data. No President has lost less than 43 seats when their polling was below 50% approval. A recent Gallup poll showed Biden is hovering around 41%.

Polling of which party will take Congress is possibly the most telling indicator. It’s perceived as “too close to call” when the Democrats have a 5% edge. That’s because Democrat’s win by gaudy numbers in safe urban districts and Republicans win with lower percentages in districts they’re favored in. As of today, the RealClearPolitics poll of polls has the Republicans up 2%. That would indicate a decisive victory come election day. A mitigating factor could be, that Republicans actually did better in 2020 than anyone thought. So, you can’t pick up a seat you already have. But still, that may be a small factor.

Two swing states with important Senate races have seen significant voter registration gains for Republicans. Pennsylvania and Nevada both have reported large numbers of Democratic mutinies. Hispanics in particular are flipping. Numerous polling sources are reporting that the left can no longer depend on the Hispanic vote, in fact now half of Hispanic voters favor Republicans. What used to be safe Democratic seats in the Rio Grande Valley are no longer. Republican’s have won a handful of recent border-city mayoral races, that just a few years ago would be unthinkable. More than any other group, Hispanics are turned off by the hard jolt to the left being driven by the ruling, mainly Democratic elite. And it’s no secret. The sudden defection has sent shock waves through the party. They’ve called on George Soros, the Darth Vader of the left and he’s doing what he can. One of his activist funds just paid $80 million for 18 Spanish-speaking radio stations formerly owned by UniVision. That effort will be run by former Obama and Clinton stormtroopers. We’re not talking about a media buy here. A strident oracle of the left will actually own the stations and with it one can expect left leaning propaganda morning, noon and night. “Democrats bueno, Republicans malo.”

Another sign the left is feeling the heat, they are spending money in areas they didn’t think they needed to. Starting Monday, expect to start seeing some of the $21 million the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is pumping into 13 media markets to try to stanch the bleeding. And where is the most going? To Nevada, the state where they’ve seen the biggest shift in voter ID. And what group will be watching and listening to the largest number of ads? Hispanics. $1.5 million will be going to Spanish speaking radio and TV in Las Vegas.

And what might be the Democrat’s Hail Mary, will be also be coming this week, live and in color to your favorite channel, news or otherwise. The 1/6 hearings will kick off and with it you’ll be subjected to wall-to-wall coverage of what is likely the lefts last hope to turn the tide. Even though most of us know better, the committee Democrats will try to show the world how depraved and craven Republicans are with very little, if any opportunities for rebuttals or review of any of the evidence. In addition, the committee has hired a script writer and Hollywood director to try to provide a veneer of showmanship and professionalism. But to most Americans, it will likely be like putting lipstick on a pig. Committee members have claimed they had countless smoking guns to date, that have fizzled out. My prediction is that it will barely move the needle, if at all. Americans are so conditioned to the leftwing media bias, that those who favor the left are the only ones who will tune in. Others will just write it off as the shamelessly partisan spectacle that it is. The NYT, WaPo, CBS no longer enjoy their monopoly. They’ve been effectively neutered by their own hand, overplaying their role in what was once an objective enterprise.

Over the past month, Republicans moved the needle in their favor in 12 House races according to the Cook Political Report. Republicans have shown much more voter enthusiasm than Democrats in early primaries. In the Senate, GOP candidates in states expected to be close have moved in a positive direction in polling (JD Vance in Ohio, Blake Masters in Arizona and Adam Laxalt in Nevada).

So, that’s where we are. Polling numbers rarely improve for the President from May on, of a midterm election year. Bank on the Democrats to do whatever they can to try to stem the tide, legal or otherwise. Expect anything. Be surprised by nothing. The Silly Season is upon us.

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Let me start with Jennifer Granholm, no Pete Buttigieg, no Alejandro Mayorkas.

It’s impossible to determine who has shown themselves to be more incompetent. The energy secretary (Granholm) who oversaw the closing down of most domestic pipelines and oil production during raging price increases, only to criticize OPEC when they wouldn’t lower their prices. Or the transportation secretary who insisted on staying out of the office on family leave, during the worst supply chain crisis of our time. Or the head of the Border Patrol, who is allowing illegal crossers to use their arrest warrant as identification to get free tickets on a plane (no proof of vax required) to mostly secret destinations.

For the most part, the appointments to these cherry positions come either as a thank-you for loyalty, or a payoff for agreeing to not run against the President. It’s rare in this day, that a cabinet head is chosen for ever having accomplished anything in a certain area of government or business. While many of the choices have excellent academic resumes (which adds to the growing notion that today’s colleges are highly overrated), most have not distinguished themselves other than being good at sucking up to the guy who is making the appointment. It’s no co-incidence that Biden is polling at record low numbers. His demise has been aided and abetted by the choices he’s made to head these important positions.

For Biden, the glaring deficiencies of his choices were on display early, when Biden tried to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan last April. Secretary of State Tony Blinken was caught totally off guard when he overestimated the ability of the Afghan military to defend their territory against the Taliban. On day one of the mission, 13 US servicemen were killed by a Taliban bomber and many more Afghani’s outside the gate of the airport in Kabul. The government leaders at the time scurried out of the country and it’s again under the control of the Taliban.

Another glaring example of the Peter Principle, is National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. He was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at the time of the Benghazi attack; when she left government, he moved to the White House and was one of the several officials who met secretly with Iranian counterparts to pave the way for the nuke deal. And now he’s the yes-man national security adviser who didn’t question his boss’s folly when it came to fleeing Afghanistan and tying the military’s hands with rapid-drawdown demands that forced the abandonment of Bagram AFB. In addition, he’s mentioned in the Durham report in regard to having a suspected connection to debunked claims of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

When a Bloomberg reporter asked Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about boosting American oil production to help ease gas prices, she laughed and gleefully exclaimed, "As you know, of course, oil is a global market. It is controlled by a cartel. That cartel is called OPEC, and they made a decision yesterday that they were not going to increase beyond what they were already planning." So, I guess that’s that. Don’t open any more US oil drilling leases, or pipeline permits. American’s are basically paying a tax, hurting mostly the underclass, who will just have to pay $3,000 a year more at the pump. All this to get more folks to buy EV’s.

Last month US Customs and Border Patrol head Alejandro Mayorkas addressed a roomful of Border Patrol agents. It didn’t go well. Some agents turned their backs on Mayorkas, while others gave impassioned pleas about the new risks and stress that comes with having to confront 3 times as many crossers as there were when President Trump was in office. A number of those crossers have been surreptitiously (midnight flights) put on planes to secret locations across the US to be absorbed into those communities. 78 of those flights have gone to Florida, and no one in the administration will talk about them. So far, over 2 million illegal aliens have safely come across the border and are still in this country. Mayorkas has knowingly broken the law, and no on the left seems to care. And when he tried to hire a childish dilettante to lead a “Minister of Truth” department to tamp down misinformation, it cratered, due to obvious comparisons to Orwell’s 1984.

Moving to Transportation, small town mayor Pete Buttigieg was chosen to oversee planes, trains and automobiles. But forgot about boats. Hundreds of boats (carrying 250,000 containers) were stuck outside a dozen US ports for months due to a supply chain breakdown. But Mayor Pete felt his time was better spent with his newly adopted twins. He took two months of paid “parental leave” with his husband while store shelves were emptied.

Maybe the most inept and vindictive (he, who was passed over for the Supreme Court) is Merrick Garland, the one who thinks we needed to investigate threats against parents who spoke up too forcefully at school board meetings. And of course, an agency he oversees, the FBI, is no longer a reputable agency, as we saw on display with the Russia Collusion Hoax.

Very often, we judge people by the company they keep. Using this standard, Biden fails miserably.

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Lines of the week

“Canada has become a banana republic, only with crappier weather.” Many Twitter users

"If this spike in trans children is all biological, why is it regional? Either Ohio is shaming them or California is creating them”. Bill Maher

In response to books referencing gay sex in school libraries that can be read by elementary school kids, one writer attached this appropriate headline… “Children of the Porn”.

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Rush Limbaugh used to say that the right will always win in the arena of ideas. But if that arena has contests which forces a competitor to tie one hand tied behind his back, it’s not a fair fight. That’s how the left deals with speech. If people start being disagreeable, the left tries to stifle them by disabling them. They believe their cause is so holy and righteous they can only assume that someone with a differing viewpoint is a subversive and needs to be denounced. They rarely try to justify their position. Alternative viewpoints are seen as a threat to their mission.

Elon Musk’s Twitter venture has illustrated just how far-gone the left is when it comes to free speech. For years, they have enjoyed total dominance in the media, both social and the news. Their messaging, which was enthusiastically aided by Twitter, was able to percolate down through the huddled masses unimpeded. So, when someone came out of nowhere and tried to threaten their dominance they got indignant. They marshaled all their allies in the media and government (but then I repeat myself) and went on the attack. The Securities and Exchange Commission said it was investigating Musk for some questionable trades, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were sent out to tout the virtues of “content moderation"…that democracy just can’t handle too much free speech. And then, on cue, President Biden announced he was forming a “Disinformation Governance Board”…that will likely always be knows by its darker, more accurate moniker, “The Ministry of Truth”. And there you have it. Alternative viewpoints are no longer tolerated. Questioning the narrative will now place you under the specter of a law enforcement agency, Homeland Security.

Sounds bad, but it’s just a start. The left is trying to tighten the screws in your life by creating rating systems to reward good actors, and punish bad ones. We see it in business with the exploding presence of ESG (Environmental, Social, Corporate Responsibility). It’s a grading system that businesses are pressured to follow, to keep the wacko environmentalists, radical feminists and social justice warriors off their backs. They need to publish their good deeds in order to stay in good standing with a small but influential posse of corporate-crusading hall monitors. If you’re a public company and don’t adhere to these new standards you will be wracked with proxy battles and boycotts. Fat cat investment firms like BlackRock and Vanguard won’t include your stocks in their mutual funds or exchange traded funds unless you toe the line. A small groups definition of morality and ethics has cowed most businesses into acquiescing. It’s an insidious system which hasn’t proven to increase shareholder value, but has increased the bank accounts of ESG and diversity/inclusion consulting firms.

What’s next is even more chilling. It’s being called the Social Credit System, and it’s coming our way. FICO has been around for a long time. Credit agencies are able to track our financial activity and come up with a grade as to our credit worthiness. If you’ve been responsible, you’ll get a loan. If you’ve missed a payment, or owe too much on your card you might not. We’ve tolerated the current system, because it has not been widely abused.

But imagine if, not only your routine financial transactions were tracked…but if you got a speeding ticket, played too many video games, smoked and drank too much. Currently China documents all of that information, on every citizen. It’s all tracked. If you don’t adhere to the goals and rules of the government, you might get your Internet speeds cut, you could be banned from flying commercial, your kids could be kept from the best schools. You could even get your dog taken away.

Italy has implemented a less ambitious scheme, based on rewards as incentives to be good citizens instead of punishments. But how long until that changes. In the US, pretty soon owning a gun, driving a gas guzzling Dodge Challenger or making a nasty post on social media could come back to haunt you, if our government implemented a Social Credit Score system. And it doesn’t take a vivid imagination to conjure more burdensome consequences if you don’t toe the line. You know the American left is watching this very closely and is just waiting for the right opportunity to spring it on a complaisant public.

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It’s not a wholly uncommon condition that affects teenagers. Oppositional Defiant Disorder. It’s when a young person has a frequent and persistent pattern of anger, irritability, arguing, defiance or vindictiveness toward you and other authority figures. For most young people it’s a healable affliction that goes away by the time adulthood sets in. But to a lot of grownup Democrats, they never bothered to seek out treatment.

It’s gotten so bad for the left, that if the right comes out for an issue, the left believes it has to come out against it. Even on issues where the two sides should find common ground, the left implausibly finds a way to oppose it. No matter how mainstream or popular the right’s position on an issue, the left can’t contain itself. Here are some examples.

Free speech. The left’s response: more censorship. Barack Obama told some Stanford students this week that “misinformation” was the biggest threat to democracy

Corporate welfare. The left’s response: defend Disney’s ability to get a government waiver in order to have its own political subdivision.

Due process. The left’s response: blacklisting, cancelling with no explanation.

Anti-war. The left’s response: intervene on behalf of Ukraine.

Doing business with totalitarian governments and human rights abusers. The left’s response: ignore China’s oppressive regime and Uyghur detention camps. Virtue signalers like Apple, the NBA and Disney just turn a blind eye.

And of course, issues with the sudden fad known as transgenderism.

A little over four years ago Nick Meriwether was teaching his political philosophy class when he became front and center in the misgendering crime of the century. He called on a student by saying “Yes, sir”. That was enough for an Ohio public university to determine that Meriwether “effectively created a hostile environment” for not using the proper pronouns when addressing a transgender student. A written warning was placed in the teachers file and a note that said “further corrective actions” would be taken.

Meriwether sued, and just last week was awarded $400,000 from Shawnee State University. A jury said his civil rights were violated, due to his religious beliefs.

Earlier this week, a group of Massachusetts parents sued the school which encouraged their children to take a new name and adopt new gendered pronouns, without the parents consent. Vernadette Broyles, general counsel of the group suing the Ludlow School District, said, “We are seeing this type of concerted effort by school officials across the country. School officials are making decisions about the lives of children that they are not qualified or authorized to make and doing it without telling, and often deceiving, parents.”

These public (and many private) schools consciously have determined that they know best when it comes to the gender of a student. We're not just talking about Critical Race Theory or genderless bathrooms. A number of teachers have been featured on the “Liberals of TikTok” touting their personal experiences with gender reassignment and their various chosen pronouns...while in class, teaching. A number of these teachers have been counseling students on “changing their team”. (And, of course, the leftist Twitter felt it needed to censor the “Liberals of TikTok”, even though it just runs unedited videos of trans promoters. Too much truth is harmful).

The issue has been given even more oxygen by the rabid opposition to Florida’s left-proscribed named, “Don’t Say Gay” bill, most famously by the Disney Corporation. As many know by now, it prevents the discussion of gender transition to K-3rd graders. Disney, which we discussed in a previous edition of “I’ve Had It”, has a number of employees who are trying to include gender and sexually loaded themes into its cartoons and movies. The company says it will try to get the measure overturned. Despite Disney’s outrage, polling doesn’t seem to be on the Mouse’s side.

Here’s how the polling firm framed the issue, “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in Kindergarten through third grade or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

Two thirds of the respondents believed it was inappropriate, even more than half of Democrats believed it was not a good law.

Opponents of this type of sexualizing of small kids are claiming that the advocates are basically “grooming” the kids. Grooming is defined as when someone builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them. Children and young people who are groomed can be sexually abused, exploited or trafficked. And while, a lot of the activities now being chronicled throughout the country has led to what could be called grooming, the left is very defensive about it. This headline from the liberal Atlantic “Grooming is Republicans Cruel New Buzzword for Targeting Trans Kids.” Of course, the Biden Administration has felt the need to weigh in. Presidential spokesperson Jan Psaki said the bill is 'politically charged' and 'harsh' and puts parents of LGBTQ children in a 'heartbreaking' position.

The flak only gets heavy when you’re over the target. It’s obvious the Republicans have a killer issue here, in fact, may have a handful. As mentioned before, cultural battles may be just as important in the outcome of the midterms as inflation, crime and border issues. The left has lost its moral compass and only seeks to maintain power. But mainstream America is onto the game, and is taking measures to return a majority of the country to sanity.

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An update on a story we’ve reported on: Loudoun County School District employees could face criminal charges for covering up a rape that occurred on a district campus.

A special grand jury has been convened to explore charges against the superintendent, who claimed at the time. that there had never been any assaults in the LCSD bathroom.

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A number of political prognosticators are speculating that a Republican President could have a “filibuster proof” 60 seat majority in the US Senate in 2024.

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In the dead of night 10 months after the episode, Homeland Security finally announced that the border patrol whipping incident was closed and there will be nothing further on it. The left and the regime’s media allies, used this picture to paint the Border Patrol as a bunch of meanies, furthering their position that illegals were being mistreated and should not be restrained. The patrolman shown was proven to not having whipped the crosser, but it didn’t stop President Biden from harshly condemning him the day after the alleged event.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikeboyd.substack.com

The news this week is pretty much all about Elon Musk and with it, our vicarious adventure into the Twitterverse with him. Whether he can change the culture made up of coddled snowflakes and shameless free speech destroyers is still not known. What we do know, is the political landscape is likely about to change. It’s getting close to time for the inflation-creating, trans-promoting, parent-hating, crime-inducing junta to lose it grip.

The steady drumbeat since the Afghanistan disaster has been building with each passing day. President Joe Biden and the Democrat party have had few, if any opportunities to halt the momentum that will more than likely lead them to a crushing defeat come November. With 10 states holding primaries in May, few believe the administration can do much of anything to turn the tide once the election stretch begins. But I’m sure they’ll try.

Six months ago, Biden said inflation was “transitory”, then four months ago it “hit its peak”, two months ago he said it was Putin’s fault and this week, it hit 8.5% on an annualized basis…1.3% increase in March alone…the highest one month jump in 40 years. Polling numbers have stalled at around 42% approval. The news gets worse.

The once-every-10 year exercise of redistricting has moved recently from a 5 seat edge for Democrats to likely, no edge, and depending on how Florida’s final map comes out, the process could likely come out favoring the Republican’s. That to go along with the statistic that, on average, the party in power loses 29 seats. If a President had an approval rating of below 50%, the party numbers should decline by 43 seats. The Obama Presidency saw its Congressional delegation drop by 63 members. The GOP only needs 6 to be in the majority. In the Senate, most analysts are predicting a 2-3 seat pickup, leaving the Republicans with a majority in both the House and the Senate. Starting with the shocking Republican victory in Virginia, there has been a steady stream of upset victories, from school boards to Congress, in the last six months which likely serve as a harbinger of what’s to come. Pennsylvanians and Nevadans have switched parties (Democrat to Republican) like not seen in 50 years. Hispanic polling has shown nearly a doubling of new Republican registrations in the last few years. Independent voter support for Democrats is down 20% from two years ago.

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So, since political power is basically everything to the left, what can they do? Depending on who you talk to, all that’s remaining for the Democrats is find a way to cheat, or create a crisis. Many more eyes will be on them this election. So cheating will not be as easy. So all that’s left is to basically scare over half of the country, and hope the spooked voter will want to maintain the status quo during an emergency. Whether it be a new Covid lockdown (Philadelphia just reinstated its mask mandate), a climate emergency, entering into war…or some other created calamity, expect something to come along that will shake things up.

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If the prognosticators are correct and the Republicans sweep into Congress, what can we expect? Pragmatism and working across the aisle? Not likely. From continually being called racists and white supremacists, to locking up 1/6 protesters for mostly petty crimes, the GOP is not terribly excited to work with the President and his minions. With that as a pretext, the Republicans know that Biden will likely veto any policy matter they deem important anyway. So, why bother? Some think it’s time to teach the left a lesson for its heavy handedness over the past few years. Historian Victor Davis Hanson came out with a few “get-evens” in a recent column. Here’s a brief list. You can find the rest here.

Impeach Biden for blatant violations of immigration law.

A special counsel on the Biden Crime Family, to see if it compromised our national security.

A new 1/6 investigation to go through the unviewed video tapes of that day to try to discover if Ashli Babbitt’s death was caused by a reckless cop and who was responsible for holding protesters in prison without cause.

Create a special committee on who botched up the Afghanistan fiasco.

A special committee on the BLM/Antifa summer riots and investigate what role the Biden administration played in organizing and funding them.

Investigate the motives and reasons behind the extreme Covid 19 lockdown, vax and mask mandates and punish those who caused such financial, psychological and societal harm to millions of victims.

Elections have consequences. Assuming the GOP is successful and takes back the Congress, many will be asking for blood. Only time will tell, if the constant tormenting by the left will result in retribution, or a sudden urge to mend fences. I wouldn’t hold my breath on the latter.

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It reminds me a little of when Rose was talking about how popular Ferris Bueller was at school, “The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him.” Sometimes rattling off a list is an effective way to get peoples attention. The list included most all of the disaffected, restless malcontents populating Glenbrook North High School.

While the group at Glenbrook North seemed mostly harmless, the group most of us are having to contend with today has a list that is much more diabolical.

Tomas Pueyo calls them the climatists, the Covidians, the mass migrationists, the Ukrainists and the antiracists. You can add the fluid gender champions, privilege opponents and foes of toxic masculinity. To be truly woke, you must be all of the above. It must take a lot of time and effort to maintain such ideological purity…to keep up with the latest woke cause celebres. While most non-believers estimate they only make up about 28% of those who were polled, you’d never know it by their overblown presence and their almost hostile bid to control the cultural narrative. They are unrelenting in their pursuit and if you try to stop them, be prepared, they will try to come after you. If you pick a fight with any of them, it’s best if you work for yourself, have no friends or family and don’t put your money in a bank.

While they are master bulliers, they have thin skin. They are like boxers with glass jaws, they can’t take a hit. When parents take on progressive school board members, security guards show up out of no where…they cannot handle dissent. When a onetime supporter has the temerity to question any portion of the woke narrative, the woke police and Twitter trolls make an instantaneous counter attack. They are a well trained, dogmatic army of ideological pit bulls.

The latest culture contest involves the once kid-friendly Disney universe. Once the Florida legislature passed a bill limiting what teachers can openly discuss of alternative lifestyles to K-3 graders, Disney’s pro-trans work brigade went into action. Calling it the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill (of course, by now we all know there is no mention of gay in the bill), an apparently powerful legion of pro-groomer and LGBT++++++++ fanatics made it their mission to crush Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who signed the bill into law. They said it was cruel to limit discussions of sexual mutilation, pedophilia, gay sex and transgender transitioning to 6 and 7 year olds. Last week, reporter Christopher Rufo posted a Tweet of a Disney executive discussing ways he can inject more trans and gay characters into their kids productions. Disney production coordinator Allen March, who says his team is committed to "exploring queer stories" and promoting "trans," "bisexual," and "gender nonconforming" characters, says kids are "getting all this information from the media" and "there's a lot of power to that."

So that’s what American’s are dealing with. Having to decide if these types of themes are consistent with their value system will be one of the big stories moving forward. The left is all in. The right is conversely repulsed. With cartoons and movies, Americans who favor traditional treatment of the sex lives of characters, can always opt out. But when it comes to the classroom, they can’t unless parents pressure their local school boards. Like instituting Critical Race Theory, and promoting the curriculum, the ongoing clash over the sexualization of very young kids in our schools will likely outweigh some of the more pressing issues we face.

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Lyin’ Biden

What is it with people who have seemingly lived a full life, feeling the need to lie about relatively mundane occurrences? Compulsive liars have a need to embellish and exaggerate, says Paul Ekman, PhD, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California in San Francisco and the author of Telling Lies, among other books. "They tell the stories they think want to be heard," he says. When you ask a compulsive liar for an opinion on an important issue, says Dr. Ekman, they’re likely to say something like this: "You know, you made a really wise choice in asking my opinion. Many people do.”

"Often, they’re pretty good liars," Ekman adds. "You often believe what they say — at least for a while."

If there was ever a classic case, it’s our President Joe Biden. Some examples:

He told a New Hampshire crowd of “having had a house burn down with my wife in it — she got out safely, God willing.” In reality, it was a small grease fire and there was no damage to the kitchen.

Biden claims he was offered a job by an Idaho lumber company; they have no record.

He claims he “used to drive” an 18-wheeler — it didn’t happen.

He’s said he visited Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue after the 2018 massacre, speaking to the rabbi, when the synagogue says he’s never even been there.

Even when there’s some truth, he exaggerates — as when he chats with Gold Star families about his late son Beau as if he’d died in action, rather than of brain cancer.

It would be bad enough if Biden only told personal tall tales. But his reality distortion field now extends to national policy. He routinely insists “all the economists” back his plans, writes off inflation as a temporary spike, insists the border surge is just “seasonal,” even calls his disastrous Afghan bugout a “success” (while falsely claiming his generals didn’t object).

The Federalist has a list of 150 lies since taking office, both whoppers and white lies. A lot, his supporters say, has to do with his age, and that’s what old guys do. The right meanwhile, uses the tall tales to illustrate his cognitive decline. Get used to them. Like an addict pining for his next drink, at any moment, liars will lie. Expect Joe to spin many more tall tales before he’s done.

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